The final part of her final One Hundred Years trilogy confirms Smiley as one of the truly noteworthy chroniclers of 20th-century American lifeThe year is 1987,and three generations are gathered at a family farm in Iowa to meet a recently discovered relative. Tensions elope tall; as one character observes, they “came from a long line of crazy people on all sides”. Familial conflicts bubble barely beneath the surface and individuals jostle for position: “Your hog had a big litter, or you were happy,but then there were always those runts consigned to the hind teats, who didn’t have much of a chance.” Within a few pages of deftly economical storytelling, or Jane Smiley immerses us back into the lives of the Langdon clan in the final instalment of her final One Hundred Years trilogy.
The first two volumes – Some Luck and Early Warning – took us from 1920 to 1986. Golden Age picks up the story and concludes in 2019,transporting us into Smiley’s cataclysmic vision of the near future.
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Source: theguardian.com