Jane Smiley - Some Luck

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On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildly different yet equally remarkable children: Frank, the brilliant, stubborn first-born; Joe, whose love of animals makes him the natural heir to his family's land; Lillian, an angelic child who enters a fairy-tale marriage with a man only she will fully know; Henry, the bookworm who's not afraid to be different; and Claire, who earns the highest place in her father's heart. Moving from post-World War I America through the early 1950s, Some Luck gives us an intimate look at this family's triumphs and tragedies, zooming in on the realities of farm life, while casting-as the children grow up and scatter to New York, California, and everywhere in between-a panoramic eye on the monumental changes that marked the first half of the twentieth century. Rich with humor and wisdom, twists and surprises, Some Luck takes us through deeply emotional cycles of births and deaths, passions, and betrayals, displaying Smiley's dazzling virtuosity, compassion, and understanding of human nature and the nature of history, never discounting the role of fate and chance. This potent conjuring of many lives across generations is a stunning tour de force.

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“It was so quiet there it spooked me,” said Frank. “And I was right.” Lillian saw that there were plenty of things that had happened in the war that Frank and Arthur were never going to tell her about. Mama would have tossed her hand, clucked, “And rightly so! Less said about any number of things!” But it made Lillian feel startled and anxious, as if a wall of the house had vaporized.

After they went to bed at their regular time, Lillian could hear Frank pacing around the living room until she dropped off. In the morning, he was already up and dressed by the time she had her robe on. He ate his Cheerios and the toast she made in her brand-new Sunbeam toaster, thanked her, and smacked her backside (“behind”) again, and when she skipped out of the way, he said, “Bad habit. Sorry, Lil.”

“Don’t try it with Mama.”

Frank laughed.

He went out with Arthur, and they walked together to the train — Arthur to work and Frank to Union Station, then Chicago and home. Arthur was impressed. That night, he said, “We talked nonstop. He’s brilliant, your brother, and he has his eyes wide open. If there was anything that escaped his notice in the last four years, I’d sure like to know what it was. We should definitely help him find a job around here.”

“I’d like that,” said Lillian.

THEY HAD TO POSTPONE Frank’s coming-home party at the last minute, and for a sad reason — Mrs. Frederick died, and though you couldn’t say it was unexpected, you had to say it was sudden. She had been able to do almost nothing in the last year. They had moved her bed down to the dining room, and she didn’t even get out of it to go to the bathroom — Minnie had a bedpan and an old-fashioned slop bucket, and did it all herself, wiping and washing and changing the bedclothes and emptying the slop bucket. That house was the first in the area with indoor plumbing; they could have more easily had her upstairs. But it was strange, Rosanna thought, the little choices you had to make that you never foresaw, such as was it easier to be closer to the bathroom or to the kitchen, did you stow an invalid who could barely move upstairs, where she was out of the way, or did you have her right where everyone who came in would go over to her and take her hand and say hello and then include her in the conversation? Of course, Minnie did the kindest thing, and also never complained about the slop bucket or anything else. Lois was a little put out, though she didn’t say it. But Lois was sixteen now, and her childhood had been an utter tragedy. Roland Frederick was a useless man. He stopped doing his farm work and, it was said, roamed from tavern to tavern in Usherton. Lois was pretty enough, but she always looked down in the dumps, and though Rosanna, who had plenty of time, sewed her some nice outfits for school, she didn’t wear them with any flair. She let her hair go, too. You could look like a nanny goat, as Rosanna considered that she herself now did, but, still, you ought to be neat and trim.

Frankie didn’t say a thing about the party, and probably did not care, but he let Rosanna drag him all around Denby — into Dan’s store and the café and the church and every other little place, including the tiny room where Maureen Thompson was now cutting and curling ladies’ hair, and everywhere, men and women and kids grabbed him and hugged him and thanked him for his service. Old men sat him down and bought him coffee and asked to hear all about it, and Frankie told them this and that, such as where he’d served and whether he liked Africa or France better, and what the mud was like, and how was his German now, and did he believe this story that they were telling about the Jews and the camps, and what about the Russkies. Frank said what he thought. But he kept smiling and nodding, and after listening in on a few of these conversations, Rosanna realized that the new Frankie was just like the old Frankie — he listened more than he talked, and the other fellow went his way reconfirmed in his opinions, not having learned much that was new.

For the first two weeks, Frankie said nothing about what was next, nothing about a job. He drove the new tractor a few times, and he could still plant a straight row, but he didn’t seem to notice the disappearance of the chickens and the cattle — all they had was hogs now, and not many of them. Just corn, corn, corn, everywhere corn. Nor did he take down his gun and set out to shoot any rabbits, though he did move the board in the wall beside the case to find eight dollars, which he split between Henry and Claire. When he wasn’t riding the tractor or being shepherded about town, he was gone to Usherton in Walter’s car or walking around the farm. He must have crisscrossed the farm ten times. When Rosanna asked him why, he only ran his hands through his hair and said, “Used to it, I guess. Can’t stand sitting around anymore, even when moving is pointless.”

“You should get out your old bicycle.”

“That’s a good idea.” But he didn’t get it out.

He stayed up late with the radio low and got up early. Walter remembered being the same way when he got back from France — lasted for six months. “I was gone for a year. Frank was gone for four, so I guess this’ll last for two years.”

Rosanna said, “He doesn’t seem to be drinking.”

“He doesn’t.”

“Really?”

“Well, Mother, I’m not spying on him. Soldiers drink. That’s what they do. A decent, well-run army gives them something to drink, like the Brits.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Walter!”

“Well, what do you think we did in our spare time in France? Most of us knew how to rig up a still, and there was plenty of wine that needed to be brandy.”

“I think he had worse things happen than you did.”

“Rosanna,” said Walter, “I think he did.” They looked at each other, but what was there to say? There was no entry into Frankie’s heart, if there ever had been, at least for them. But Walter had answered the letter Lillian sent about seeing Frank in Washington, and Lillian had replied, and Walter had said to Rosanna, “I guess you’d better start knitting a baby blanket.” That very evening, sitting in her chair in the front room, Rosanna had brought out the pink, blue, and yellow seed-stitch piece she was working on, and Walter saw that she was already more than half finished. Rosanna calculated, though — if the child was due in July, that was a good time for Rosanna to take the train to Washington, and there would be a lull in the farm work right around then, too, so Walter could just put on some regular shoes and a nice shirt and come along. Had they ever seen the White House? No, they had not. Nor any ocean of any kind. Stuck on the farm like two shoats struggling in a hog pen. The state fair was all very well, but it shouldn’t be the last thing you saw in your life. At first you thought of people like Eloise and Frank and Lillian as runaways, and then, after a bit, you knew they were really scouts.

JOE’S EXCUSE for not seeing much of Frank when Frank was around had been that it was planting time, of course. They did have that one day where Frank helped him with the Frederick field, which was a hundred acres now, and as flat as a griddle. Maybe that had been a bad idea, Joe thought afterward. He could see Minnie at the windows, first downstairs, then upstairs, watching the tractor. And she came over twice and sat with Frank. Every time he said anything, she smiled, and when he greeted her by kissing her on both cheeks, she blushed. That wasn’t the Minnie he knew — his Minnie was practical and down-to-earth, always happy to see him, but slipping away like a fish in a pond when he tried to put his arm around her. She always said, “That’s not for me, Joe. Don’t know why,” leading him to believe that he was first in line if she changed her mind. But he wasn’t first in line.

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