Some Luck

Some Luck by Jane Smiley, 395 pages

Jane Smiley is an excellent writer and this slice of Midwestern American life story is no exception.  Walter Langdon is a farmer in Iowa who marries Rosanna.  They have five children who survive childhood and the book covers the lives of the family from 1920 to 1953.  We get to see the births of all six children, Frank, Joe, Mary Elizabeth, who dies young, Lillian, Henry and Claire.  We get to see their good years and bad, the births and deaths, the Great Depression and World War II.  There is no big action in the book, but Smiley has a way of making characters seem real and their troubles and triumphs important which makes her books really nice to read.  And even though there is no bog conflict and resolution, she always brings the stories to a satisfactory conclusion.  I would recommend this to anyone who likes slice-of-life, historical America stories.