Golden Age (The Last Hundred Years Trilogy: A Family Saga, Band 3) - Softcover

Buch 3 von 3: The Last Hundred Years Trilogy: A Family Saga

Smiley, Jane

 
9780307744821: Golden Age (The Last Hundred Years Trilogy: A Family Saga, Band 3)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0307744825 ISBN 13: 9780307744821
Verlag: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres comes the much-anticipated final volume in the acclaimed The Last Hundred Years Trilogy, following Some Luck and Early Warning. A richly absorbing new novel that is “a monumental portrait of an American family and an American century…. Smiley’s plot is a marvel of intricacy that’s full of surprises.” —Los Angeles Times

It’s 1987, and the next generation of Langdons is facing economic, social, and political challenges unlike anything their ancestors have encountered. Michael and Richie, twin sons of World War II hero Frank, work in the high-stakes worlds of government and finance—but their fiercest enemies may be closer to home. Charlie, the charmer, struggles to find his way; Guthrie is deployed to Iraq, leaving the Iowa family farm in the hands of his younger sister, Felicity—who, as always, has her own ideas. Determined to help preserve the planet, she worries that her family farm’s land is imperiled, and not only by the extremes of climate change.

Moving seamlessly from the power-brokered 1980s and the scandal-ridden ‘90s to our own present moment and beyond, Golden Age combines intimate drama, emotional suspense, and an intricate view of history, bringing to a magnificent conclusion the epic trilogy of one unforgettable family.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

JANE SMILEY is the author of numerous novels, including A Thousand Acres, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently, Some Luck and Early Warning, the first volumes of The Last Hundred Years trilogy. She is also the author of five works of nonfiction and a series of books for young adults. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she has also received the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. She lives in Northern California.

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1987


It was friday. Everyone was somewhere else, doing last-­minute chores. The tall young man got out of his little green station wagon, stretched, looked around, took off his sunglasses, and started up the walk. Minnie Frederick, who saw him through her bedroom window, dropped the stack of sheets she was carrying and ran down the stairs. But he was not at the door, and when she went out onto the porch, he was nowhere to be seen. Back in the house, through the kitchen, out onto the stoop. Still nothing, apart from Jesse, her nephew, a noisy dot, cultivating the bean field east of the Osage-­orange hedge. She walked around the house to the front porch. The car was still there. She crossed to it and looked in the window. A pair of fancy boots in the foot well of the passenger’s seat, two wadded-­up pieces of waxed paper, a soda can. She stood beside the green car for a long moment, then touched the hood. It was warm. It was real. She was not imagining things, sixty-­seven years old, she who came from a long line of crazy people on all sides, who was both happy and relieved to have chosen long ago not to reproduce. What, she thought, was the not-­crazy thing to do? It was to make a glass of iced tea and see if her sister, Lois, had left any shortbread in the cookie jar.

When had Lois first mentioned him—­Charlie Wickett—­sometime in January? But Minnie hadn’t paid attention, because she was planning her summer trip to Rome. He was Tim’s son, Lillian and Arthur’s grandson, produced by means of one of those irresponsible high-­school romances that every principal was only too familiar with. The baby had ended up in St. Louis. Tim had ended up in Vietnam, killed by a grenade fragment. Charlie now lived in Aspen, said he would be happy to meet everyone, to drive to Denby, and within a week, a reunion had exploded around his coming. They were all heading to the farm—­Frank and Andy, Michael and Richie with their wives and kids, Janet, alone (Minnie remembered that Janet had always had a thing about Tim), Arthur and Debbie and her kids (Hugh, her husband, couldn’t come because of exams, though). There hadn’t been a family gathering of this size since Claire’s wedding—­1962, that was. Minnie hoped everyone would mind their manners. She knew plenty of farm families who did not get along, but they kept their conflicts to themselves and behaved, at least in public. Families that had scattered, like the Langdons, could end up looking and acting like alien species of a single genus. Frank had nothing in common with Joe (never had), except that, thanks to Frank, the farm was paid off. Frank let Jesse and Joe work the land however they wished. Lillian, whom everyone had loved, had passed three and a half years before, and there was plenty of family gossip about what a mess Arthur and Debbie were. Dean kept to himself, and Tina, the youngest, had taken off to the mountains of Idaho. She wasn’t coming (but she had driven down to Aspen, met Charlie, liked him, and issued a bulletin in the form of a drawing that depicted a handsome, laughing kid. How she had gotten the twinkle into his eye, Minnie didn’t understand). For once, Henry was coming from Chicago (Minnie suspected that no one in Chicago knew that Henry was a farm kid). Only Claire, who was driving up from Des Moines, was a regular visitor. A big party. Lois was in charge of the cooking, Jen in charge of shopping, Joe in charge of the generous welcome. Minnie had done a lot of cleaning.

Now Charlie appeared on the other side of the screen door, loose-­limbed and fit. He saw her, he smiled, and Minnie said, “I thought you were a phantom.”

“Oh, I am sorry,” said Charlie. “When I got out of the car and realized how hot it was getting, I decided I had to take my run right away, so I ran around the section. What is that, do you think?”

“Four miles,” said Minnie.

He said, “Well, I’m not used to the heat yet. But it’s really flat, so that makes up for it a little.”

She got up and opened the door. She said, “I’ll bet you’d like some water.”

She took a glass out of the drainer and held it under the tap. Not too brown. Lois had bought some kind of French sparkling water for the weekend, though Minnie was surprised you could get that sort of thing in Iowa. He tilted his head back, opened his mouth, poured it down. She didn’t see the Langdon in him the way Frank had when he first espied him in a coffee shop in Aspen last fall, and, supposedly, was convinced the boy was a younger version of himself. Nor did she hear it in his voice (but, then, she hadn’t spent much time with Tim). What she saw was grace and a ready smile. His eyes flicked here and there as he drank—­he was no less observant than Frank, probably, but he looked like those kids she had known over the years whose parents were indulgent and easygoing, kids who understood that redemption was automatic.

Yes, she was charmed.

She said, “I’ve made the bed in your room. You can take your things up there and have a rest, if you’d like. Everyone else should be home in a bit. Jen took Guthrie and Perky into town to Hy-­Vee, but she should be back any time.” He filled his glass again and drank it down. She said, “My name is Minnie Frederick; my sister, Lois, is married to your great-­uncle Joe. Gosh, we sound old! I’m the dedicated aunt of Annie and Jesse, also a nosy neighbor, retired local principal, and arbiter of disputes.”

“Are we going to need one of those?”

“We should know by tomorrow evening.”

The smile popped out. He said, “I thought of bringing my protection squad along, but she had to work.”

“Your girlfriend?”

He nodded.

“We heard about her.”

“You did?”

“You don’t know that you were followed, that your license-­plate number was jotted down, that your every move went into the photographic memory of Frank Langdon?”

“When was that?”

“Last September. You sold him boots, too.”

Charlie shook his head, but he didn’t seem disconcerted. He looked at the ceiling moldings for a moment, then said, “May I look around the house? My mom would love this house.”

“It’s a kit house from 1916. It arrived on the train, and my father, grandfather, and uncles helped put it together. There used to be lots of other houses around, including the Langdon place, which we could see from here, but that one had to be torn down. We had a one-­room schoolhouse within walking distance, but that’s all gone now. In some places, there are a few trees where houses used to be.” Minnie made herself stop talking, only said, “But you look around, ask questions if you want. I’m going to clean up in here a bit.”

He went through the swinging door into the dining room. She tried to imagine how the place looked to him. Old, though not decrepit. Weighty? Awkwardly set into the tall-­grass prairie (maybe a sod hut would be more appropriate)? She had lived here her whole life, except for a few years in Cedar Falls, getting her teaching degree. Her parents had died here, and not easily—­her mother had lingered for years after her stroke, with only Minnie to take care of her and Lois after her father disappeared, and then her father returned, full of drunken resolve to get something back that was owed him; Lois had found him at the bottom of the cellar stairs, his head smashed into the concrete. (What had he been looking for? Booze? Treasure? Revenge?) But if every day...

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Verlag
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0307744825
ISBN 13 
9780307744821
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
464
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
preigu
mail@preigu.de

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