Private Life
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres--and "one of her generation's most eloquent chroniclers of ordinary familial love" (The New York Times)--comes a "masterly...compelling depiction of a singular woman," (The New Yorker), from her childhood in post-Civil War Missouri to California in the throes of World War II.
Here is the powerful, deeply affecting story of one Margaret Mayfield. When Margaret marries Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early at the age of twenty-seven, she narrowly avoids condemning herself to life as an old maid. Instead, knowing little about marriage and even less about her husband, she moves with Andrew to his naval base in California. Margaret stands by Andrew during tragedies both historical and personal, but as World War II approaches and the secrets of her husband's scientific and academic past begin to surface, she is forced to reconsider the life she had so carefully constructed.
Here is the powerful, deeply affecting story of one Margaret Mayfield. When Margaret marries Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early at the age of twenty-seven, she narrowly avoids condemning herself to life as an old maid. Instead, knowing little about marriage and even less about her husband, she moves with Andrew to his naval base in California. Margaret stands by Andrew during tragedies both historical and personal, but as World War II approaches and the secrets of her husband's scientific and academic past begin to surface, she is forced to reconsider the life she had so carefully constructed.
A riveting and nuanced novel of marriage and family, Private Life reveals the mysteries of intimacy and the anonymity that endures even in lives lived side by side.
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Community Reviews
I left this book unfinished and really didn't care what happened to the characters. The book starts out by describing people in a Japanese interment camp during WWII. The people were accused of espionage without proof and lost everything. Then the book abruptly goes back in time to 1880s and the story of family with three daughters whose father had died. They each need to marry off into respectable families and settle down. This part is so tedious and boring as you follow each girl, whom she marries, and what chidren she has. It is like slogging through mud. I'm sure the two story lines will intersect, but I don't care to invest any more time finding out how this happens. I read another Jane Smiley book recently and also thought it was slow and plodding. I won't be selecting any more books by this author.
Margaret's story is one that circles around the ways we see ourselves as compared to the way others see us. There is, if you think about it, a fundamental difference between the two for every one of us. Margaret's self image and her husband Andrew's self image may be at opposite ends of the spectrum, but they both inform us in novel ways about the dichotomy. The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century - and reminisces about the Civil War, and engages at a distance in both WWI and WWII, My enduring question is: How do I become the person I would like to be? Will my intentions be perceived as I intend? It emphasizes the platinum rule: Do unto others as they would have you do unto them, not as you would have them do unto you.
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