She has so far published an epic (“The Greenlanders”), a detective story ( “Duplicate Keys”), a tragedy (“A Thousand Acres,” probably her most famous book, which retells the “King Lear” story and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992), a comedy (“Moo”) and a romance (“The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton”), not to mention a racetrack novel ( “Horse Heaven”) and one that recycles Boccaccio’s “Decameron” ( “Ten Days in the Hills”). Smiley made up her mind at an early age that she was going to master not just one genre but all of them. The only unusual things about her are her height - she is 6 feet 2 inches but looks even longer - and her obsession with horses, which rivals that of Trollope, another of her idols. And she is modest and charming, friends with just about everyone, including her several ex-husbands (to whom the new book is dedicated, along with the incumbent spouse). She seemingly writes the way her idol Dickens did - as easily as if it were breathing. She’s prolific and successful, untroubled by neuroses or blockages, with no messy blots of drinking or drug-taking on her résumé.
Jane Smiley, whose 12th adult novel, “Some Luck,” comes out on Tuesday, is the sort of writer who secretly drives other writers a little bit crazy.
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