The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) - Softcover

9780449910832: The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER · Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley recaptures an almost forgotten part of the American story and once again demonstrates her extraordinary range and brilliance in The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton
 
Set in the 1850s, The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton speaks to us in a splendidly quirky voice—the strong, wry, no-nonsense voice of Lidie Harkness of Quincy, Illinois, a young woman of courage, good sense, and good heart. It carries us into an America so violently torn apart by the question of slavery that it makes our current political battlegrounds seem a peaceable kingdom.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

“Rousing . . . Action-packed . . . A gripping story about love, fortitude, and convictions that are worth fighting for.”Los Angeles Times

“Powerful . . . Smiley takes us back to Kansas in 1855, a place of rising passions and vast uncertainties. Narrated in the spirited, unsentimental voice of 20-year-old Lidie Newton, the novel is at once an ambitious examination of a turning point in history and the riveting story of one woman's journey into uncharted regions of place and self.”Chicago Tribune

“[A] grand tale of the moral and political upheavals igniting antebellum frontier life and a heroine so wonderfully fleshed and unforgettable you will think you are listening to her story instead of reading it. Smiley may have snared a Pulitzer for A Thousand Acres . . . but it is with Lydia (Lidie) Harkness Newton that she emphatically captures our hearts. . . . The key word in Smiley's title is Adventures, and Lydia's are crammed with breathless movement, danger, and tension; populated by terrifically entertaining characters and securely grounded in telling detail.”The Miami Herald

“Smiley brilliantly evokes mid-nineteenth century life. . . . Richly imagined and superbly written, Jane Smiley's new novel is an extraordinary accomplishment in an already distinguished career.”Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“A sprawling epic . . . A garrulous, nights-by-the-hearth narrative not unlike those classics of the period it emulates. In following a rebellious young woman of 1855 into Kansas Territory and beyond, the novel is so persuasively authentic that it reads like a forgotten document from the days of Twain and Stowe.”The Boston Sunday Globe

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Review:
Jane Smiley's game heroine prides herself on being useless, ill-tempered, and not that well behaved; in Illinois, circa 1855, a plain, penniless, parentless young woman should be anything but. Lidie, however, can ride a horse--and not sidesaddle, either--walk forever, write, and argue. All of these abilities will stand her in good stead when she and her new husband, Thomas Newton, make their way to K.T. (Kansas Territory) with a case of Sharps rifles and a desire to keep Kansas from slavery. Alas, "In K.T., it was often the case that every version of every story was equally true and equally false."

The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton is a Little House on the Prairie for grownups. Lidie's accounts of homesteading, from buying a new stove to coming upon the finest horse in the territory (and among the finest in literature), combine character, charm, and social history. (Smiley's chapter titles alone--which include "I Eavesdrop, and Hear Ill of Myself" and "Papa Is Cordial"--are worth the price of admission. "Papa," by the way, is an aged anti-abolitionist who wants to marry her.) But there is also menace. Early on, for example, Lidie pastes her home with "leaves of The Liberator and some other papers that Thomas had brought with him from the United States. This, he said, would serve the threefold purpose of advertising our views to our visitors, reminding ourselves of the arguments to be made in the cause, and keeping out the wind. Every leaf, according to the new laws of Kansas Territory, was treasonable."

Though Lidie once conjured up paradisiacal images of a "(weathertight and cozy) cabin," surrounded by fruit-laden trees, pure streams, and verdant grass through which she'd dally, "perhaps in pursuit of a pretty little cow," their tiny home is freezing and their situation fraught with fear. The Newtons' first months are filled with the exhilaration of new marriage and the difficulties of life in a hostile environment. Winter kills off several of their fellow radicals and "the southerners" seem bent on violently removing the rest. Lidie unfortunately makes the mistake of finding the season more formidable: "The prolonged frigid weather made even the prospect of being hanged, shot, dismembered, killed or otherwise cleared out rather an abstract one. The possibility of being frozen to death was distinctly more likely."

In her acknowledgments, Smiley thanks David Dary, the fine historian of the West, and The All-True Travels is a superb reinvention. Who would have thought that a shipboard meal would be more like a pitched battle, or that--as Lidie soon discovers--sentiment would turn out to be "a cruel joke in K.T."? At a certain point in the novel, however, the historical and social fabric becomes almost overwhelmingly dense. But after her hero and heroine are ambushed by southerners, Smiley pares down the details and explores Lidie's character and conscience (as she is forced into a series of memorable guises), and her "all-true travels" take on emotional and ethical complexity.

From the Inside Flap:
THE "NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER


Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres


"Rousing . . . Action-packed . . . A gripping story about love, fortitude, and convictions that are worth fighting for."
--"Los Angeles Times


A "NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK


"POWERFUL . . . Smiley takes us back to Kansas in 1855, a place of rising passions and vast uncertainties. Narrated in the spirited, unsentimental voice of 20-year-old Lidie Newton, the novel is at once an ambitious examination of a turning point in history and the riveting story of one woman's journey into uncharted regions of place and self."
--"Chicago Tribune


"[A] grand tale of the moral and political upheavals igniting antebellum frontier life and a heroine so wonderfully fleshed and unforgettable you will think you are listening to her story instead of reading it. Smiley may have snared a Pulitzer for A Thousand Acres . . . but it is with Lydia (Lidie) Harkness Newton that she emphatically captures our hearts. . . . The key word in Smiley's title is Adventures, and Lydia's are crammed with breathless movement, danger, and tension; populated by terrifically entertaining characters and securely grounded in telling detail."
--"The Miami Herald


"SMILEY BRILLIANTLY EVOKES MID-19TH-CENTURY LIFE. . . . Richly imagined and superbly written, Jane Smiley's new novel is an extraordinary accomplishment in an already distinguished career."
--"Atlanta Journal-Constitution


"A SPRAWLING EPIC . . . A garrulous, nights-by-the-hearth narrative not unlike those classics of the period it emulates. In following a rebellious young woman of 1855 into Kansas Territory and beyond, the novel isso persuasively authentic that it reads like a forgotten document from the days of Twain and Stowe."
--"The Boston Sunday Globe


"CONSISTENTLY ENTERTAINING, FILLED WITH ACTION AND IDEAS."
--"The New York Times Book Review


"ENGAGING . . . [A] HARROWING ADVENTURE . . . This picaresque tale presents a series of remarkable characters, particularly in the inexperienced narrator, whose graphic descriptions of travel and domestic life before the Civil War strip away romantic notions of simpler times. . . . Smiley has created an authentic voice in this struggle of a young woman to live simply amid a swirl of deadly antagonism."
--"The Christian Science Monitor


"A fine historical novel that describes a fascinating time and place . . . It is both funny and subtle, rich in ideas . . . Smiley has created a better all-around piece of fiction than any of her previous work, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Thousand Acres."
--"The Wall Street Journal


"Smiley is a writer of rare versatility who travels widely in her creative endeavors. She proved her mastery of both short fiction and the novel with three sterling works (The Age of Grief, Ordinary Love and Good Will, and A Thousand Acres); her fondness for history had already been established with The Greelanders. In 1995, she successfully extended her repertoire to comedy with the hilarious academic satire Moo. What her new novel shares with all these works is its authorial intelligence."
--"The Boston Sunday Globe


"Jane Smiley is nothing if not protean, a literary ventriloquist of incredible range. . . . This is a novel that manages to combine the evocative storyteller's voice with themoviemaker's sense of drama and visuals, an old-fashioned tale told with contemporary steam and panache."
--"The Philadelphia Inquirer


"Not only is this a rollicking feminist tale of a woman who can handle herself in the thick of the Kansas Wars, The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton is also a coming of age story as well as a lasting portrait of the genuinely tumultuous time just before the Civil War."
--"The Raleigh News & Observer


"A tale of love and war, revenge and betrayal, Smiley's fictional memoir invites comparisons with Gone with the Wind, even War and Peace. . . . Lidie Newton has the ring of honesty and truth. It also carries the stamp of its author's historical sense, stylistic verve, and moral passion."
--"St. Louis Post-Dispatch


"Full of the same arresting authenticity of detail that carried A Thousand Acres."
--"New York Daily News


"LIDIE IS AN UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER . . .
The All-True Travels is a showcase for Smiley's range and dexterity, dead-on in its emotional impact and resonant in the painful truths it conveys."
--"San Diego Union-Tribune


"Rendered in sharply lucid prose and filled with wonderful period detail . . . Lidie's story reads like a long and various dream, brightly colored and brilliantly observed--a journey into a world as troubled, ambiguous, and full of life as our own."
--"Chicago Tribune


"An adventure story, full of suspense, near-misses, and coincidence . . . The first and sustaining marvel of [Smiley's] new novel is Lydia Newton's voice: grounded in 19th-century reserve, yet honest, self-aware, and curious."
--"Toronto Globe & Mail


"Smiley nabbed aPulitzer for A Thousand Acres. This stunning new effort should win equally thunderous acclaim."
--"Mademoiselle

"An immensely appealing heroine, a historical setting conveyed with impressive fidelity and a charming and poignant love story make Smiley's new novel a sure candidate for bestseller longevity. . . . Propelled by Lidie's spirited voice, this narrative is packed with drama, irony, historical incident, moral ambiguities, and the perception of human frailty. . . . This novel performs all the functions of superior fiction: in reading one woman's moving story, we understand an historical epoch, the social and political conditions that produced it, and the psychological, moral, and economic motivations of the people who incited and endured its violent confrontations."
--"Publishers Weekly (starred review)


"Gloriously detailed and brilliantly told, this is a hugely entertaining, illuminating, and sagacious vision of a time of profound moral and political conflict, and of one woman's coming to terms with the perilous, maddening, and precious world."
--"Booklist (starred review)


"Smiley scales another peak with this bighearted and thoughtful picaresque novel. . . . [A] richly entertaining saga of a woman who might have been well matched with Thomas Berger's Little Big Man, and whom Huck Finn would have been proud to claim as his big sister."
--"Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"HER FINEST WORK YET . . . Resembling a cross between the writing of Jane Austen, Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain . . . A fast-paced historical ride through a defining moment in our nation's history as seen through the eyes of a remarkable woman. . . . Smiley's biggesttriumph is in the character of Lidie. One can actually 'see' her growth throughout the story as Lidie learns about the ambiguity of human morality--and that true justice is rarely served."
--"San Antonio Express-News


"Highly recommended . . . Trust Smiley to take a situation charged with both social significance and novelistic opportunity and ride it for all its worth. . . . Smiley gives us a rich lode of historical detail yet keep the story moving, so that it seems to flow by like a river while at the same time yielding up its riches in leisurely fashion."
--"Library Journal (starred review)


"Like Cold Mountain and Beloved--and with more than a casual nod to Mark Twain--this sprawling saga by the Pulitzer-winning author of A Thousand Acres connects readers to the historical issues of the time."
--"Glamour


"Our heroine is a horse-riding, river-swimming, plain-faced young woman with a distinctly well-calibrated mind of her own."
--"The Baltimore Sun


"A long, wild adventure . . . Lidie never loses her pluck, and her story becomes both a rich homage to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn an

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherAlfred A. Knopf
  • Publication date1998
  • ISBN 10 0449910830
  • ISBN 13 9780449910832
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages480
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

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