Helpful Score: 3
A stunning collection of 5 stories and a novella that confirms Jane Smiley's place as one of our most gifted writers. Clear and elegant and filled with the unmistakable sound of real people going about the business-and the pleasure-of real life. In the novella, "The Age of Grief", a man meditates on the vagaries of love and family life. Certain that his wife has fallen in love with someone else, and been spurned by him, he tries to recover what he calls "the ironic middle", the good-humored, matter-of-fact heart of the marriage where he can keep her from knowing of his own sorrow.
