Lucky
Availability: | In stock (10) |
Vintage: March 2025| Paperback: 384 pages
About the Author
Jane Smiley is the author of numerous novels, including A Thousand Acres, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently, Golden Age, the concluding volume of The Last Hundred Years trilogy. She is also the author of five works of nonfiction and a series of books for young adults. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she has also received the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. She lives in Northern California.
Reviews
“Lucky is framed as a rock’n’roll novel, but it’s a tricky and surprising one. Smiley seems determined to upend the conventions of the genre . . . What emerges instead in Lucky is a simple yet provocative idea—what if a woman protagonist were allowed to live independently on her own terms, not tied down by typically novelistic men or the bad blood that infects family life? . . . The novel’s title, upbeat on the surface, is darkened by the notion of how rare such a character is . . . Life and death flow in and out, and Smiley observes it clearly but empathetically. (Not for nothing is Dickens among her favorite writers.) . . . There’s no signal that Lucky is Smiley’s final book, but if it were, it would make for an admirable summing up—the story of a well-traveled, keen-eyed writer who’s spent decades making sense of the world in words, and taking pleasure in it for its own sake. A lucky way to make a living.” —Mark Athitakis, Los Angeles Times
“A robust, atmospheric coming-of-age story.” —People
“I suspect Lucky will be polarizing, which may well make it the book club pick of the year.” —Maren Longbella, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“A robust, atmospheric coming-of-age story.” —People
“I suspect Lucky will be polarizing, which may well make it the book club pick of the year.” —Maren Longbella, Minneapolis Star Tribune