A Thousand Acres of Heartache

A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley - Random House (c) 1991

Do the holidays bring out the squabbles (or worse) in your family? I bet A Thousand Acres will make you feel better, if only in comparison to the Cooks and the Smiths.
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I'll admit I took my time through the pages of Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres. The characters share so little joy (a few jolly games of monopoly, some delightful flirting among adults, and two brief sexual encounters) that I nearly quit.

Now I'm darned glad to say I finished it. Not just because I'm done, and not just because it's one more notch on my reading lipstick case.* I'm glad I read it because it moved me. And frankly, I can be a bit lazy about reading stuff like that.

Novels that touch me, make me squirm, make me think, make me feel - they're too few and far between, I'm afraid.

And in this exercise of reading something I didn't really want to read, I have learned. Don't worry, I'm not going to wax eloquently about delving into the human condition; I'm not that deep. Rather, what I want to say is that it's good for a reader to have friends.

A friend introduced me to Barbara Kingsolver many years ago, and I was hooked. Barbara makes me think, feel, and sometimes squirm, but just a little. She doesn't really make me blanch, shake my beliefs to the core, or even snort in exasperation at her characters and their lives. She's a fabulous writer and a word wrangler I admire, but she doesn't draw blood. Ms. Smiley got her hooks in me, and changed me a bit while she dragged me through those acres on a New York family farm.

Ouch.
Thanks.

For those still-tender marks, I have to thank Kara. Kara recommended the book very highly and in such an enthusiastic but vague way that I (erroneously) assumed the book was full of sunshine and goodness. After all, she piped up with her recommendation as I was ballyhooing two feel-good books, Wesley the Owl and The Guernsey Literary and Sweet Potato Peel Pie Society. So I just assumed A Thousand Acres would make me feel good, too.

About a month after she loaned it to me, Kara asked what I thought. Not very cheerful, is it? I replied. Oh no, she said. But it's a good book. I trust Kara, and felt obligated to finish it. But I complained. "I like happy endings. Does it have a happy ending?"

"Oh no. But it's a good book." There it was again, that nagging sense of obligation - mixed with a little bit of dread. (No happy ending?!)

Well, Kara was right; it's a good book. And I'm very grateful to good friends like that, who will give you a little push into uncomfortable territory.

Yesterday I loaned the book to another friend. At first, I tried Kara's approach. "It's a good book," I said, then felt compelled to add, "but it's not the happiest story."

"That's OK," she said. "As long as it moves me. That's what I like."

Well, humph. Maybe Allison should start a reading blog.





*if you got that reference you too must be a closet Pat Benatar fan :)