The idea for 'Perestroika in Paris” first came to Jane Smiley just as she was getting to work on her massive and exceptional 'Last 100 Years Trilogy” ('Some Luck,” 'Early Warnings,” and 'Golden Age”).

“Writing is very much like acting,” said Sean Penn from the stage during his sold-out event Monday night in Los Angeles, where he discussed his debut novel, “Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff.” “It’s only ...

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In a wide-ranging and detailed, yet somewhat flat memoir, Smiley (A Thousand Acres ; Moo ; etc.) examines the nuances of horses' lives and of the people who build ...

Cover for Jane Smiley's A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck (Knopf, 2004) Pulitzer prize-winning author Jane Smiley is best known for her novels A Thousand Acres ...

A copy of Jane Smiley’s latest, “Lucky,” sat in my lap — the last page read, the book closed. “Well, huh,” I thought. “What the heck was that all about?” I knew what the heck the plot was about: It ...

Toward the end of Jane Smiley’s new novel, “Lucky,” its narrator takes a moment to flip through her mother’s record collection. It’s got a lot of ’60s folk-rock, including, she notes, “the four J’s.” ...

"Between you and me, being a woman is a dangerous business, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise." — Mrs. Park "A Dangerous Business" by Jane Smiley Over the course of her career, author and former ...

Jane Smiley with Frida, the namesake and inspiration for one of the main characters in her new novel, "Perestroika in Paris." (Knopf) “I used to sit and strum my banjo, which I don’t do very well, and ...

It’s hard to overstate the pleasure of reading Jane Smiley — especially, for me, her essays. A new collection, “The Questions that Matter Most,” offers a case in point. Line for line, Smiley delivers ...

“In those days all stories ended with the wedding” is the quote from writer Rose Wilder Lane that serves as an epigraph for Jane Smiley’s latest novel, “Private Life” (Knopf, 318 pp., $26.95). “Those ...

Eliza was free. Dragged west to Gold Rush California from Michigan by her bully of a husband, liberated by a bullet that turned her into a widow, she considered her future in the windswept port town ...