Jody Rattler was raised by a single mother in St. Louis. She grew up surrounded by a loving extended family, had a fairly successful career as a singer, and thanks to a financially savvy uncle never had to worry about money. Although she never married or had children, she had twenty-five affairs and a few close friends. Jody considered herself lucky.

I don’t know what to make of Lucky. The writing lacks artistic prose and Jane Smiley’s description of Jody’s life is simplistic, stilted and unemotional. The epilogue, which is probably meant to be a surprise ending, is just ho-hum. It’s hard for me to believe that the author of A Thousand Acres also wrote Lucky.