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Jane Smiley.
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The range and variety of Jane Smiley's work as a writer of fiction have resulted in a great deal of critical attention, a wide and committed readership, and several different perceptions of her achiev...
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A Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Jane Smiley has also won acclaim for her work as an author of short fiction. In The Age of Grief: Stories and a Novella (1987), Ordinary Love and Good Will: Two Nove...
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In the following review, Pressley offers reserved praise for Smiley's The Greenlanders.
Few would consider the island of Greenland, with its extensive ice cover, an ideal locale for colonizatio...
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In the following review, Rubin praises Smiley's ambition in presenting a multitude of characters and subplots in Moo, but complains that she fails to fully develop them.
There's a lot to...
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In the following review, Messud lauds the variety and wit of Smiley's Moo.
In spite of its absurdities, or perhaps because of them, ours is an age which accords the greatest literary respect to...
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In the following review, Carlson presents an unfavorable assessment of Smiley's Moo.
The hermetically sealed world of the university campus is a disproportionately rich source for novelists. Th...
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In the following review, Taylor lauds Smiley's use of humor in her presentation of university life in Moo.
We can't see Jane Smiley's hands in the photograph of her on the back fl...
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In the following review, Toth offers reserved praise for Smiley's Moo.
Jane Smiley's ninth book [Moo] revels in wickedly satirical jabs at academia, specially as practiced at agricultura...
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In the following review, Charles provides a favorable assessment of Smiley's The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton.
Ernest Hemingway once said, “All modern American literat...
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In the following review, McAlpin lauds Smiley for how she deals with both personal relationships and complex political ideas in The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton.
Why the current fas...
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In the following review, Bauer praises Smiley's presentation of political commitment in The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton.
Jane Smiley's newest novel [The All-True Trav...
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In the following essay, Bakerman draws comparisons between Smiley's Duplicate Keys and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, including the tension between the characters’ Midwes...
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Oates is the author of several novels, including Man Crazy. In the following review, she asserts that while there are some well-written individual scenes in Smiley's The All-True Travels and Ad...
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In the following review, Grant praises Smiley's creation of the character of Lidie Newton in The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton, but complains that the historical details get i...
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In the following review, MacLachlan lauds Smiley's conversational style in the novellas of Ordinary Love and Good Will.
Jane Smiley's two novellas, Ordinary Love and Good Will, are about...
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In the following review, Forster lauds Smiley's Barn Blind.
Marvellous, isn't it, how an author's first novel can suddenly be worth the risk of publishing when their sixth has hit...
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Jane (Graves) Smiley
Critical Review by Melissa Pressley
