Some Luck (59 page)
Joe said, “Do you think it was his heart?”
“I think it was something he knew was coming, which was why he refused to go to the doctor after Dr. Craddock died. Oh, dear me. What a stubborn man!” She put the crook of her robe-clad elbow up to her eyes, then said, “No, Joey. Don’t walk with me. I know the way. You go back and sit with him till the undertaker comes. I’ll call Frank and Lillian and Henry. Claire can stay home from school today, too.” Joe let her arm go and watched her walk away, hunched and busy, plopping through the field in those mucky boots. Then he turned and went back to Walter. He stood for a moment, and sat down. From here, he could see the last thing his father had looked at—the long stretch of plowed land to the east, the gently curving, flat horizon, and just the tops of the Grahams’ old windbreak—they had planted blue spruces, but only a few survived. He had seen birds, Joe hoped—at the moment, there were a couple of red-tailed hawks
floating on a draft. Off to the right, maybe he had seen the upper story and the roof of Joe’s house, Lois’s house, Minnie’s house, Ann’s house now, where Lois was certainly wondering where he was and Minnie was getting ready for school.
It was too bad, Joe thought, that this present quiet had to give way to the movement and bustle of a funeral and a burial, but that was, of course, what Walter would expect. Joe thought the better thing would be to sink into the earth right in this spot, to be here where everyone in the family could run past each day and offer a greeting or a memory. Joe took a few deep breaths and edged a little closer to Walter one last time. He closed his eyes and listened to the air scudding along the surface of the earth, and as the day warmed, fragrance rose to envelop him.
AS SOON AS
Claire woke up, she thought of the biscuits. Over the weekend, when Claire was supposed to be babysitting for Annie, Lois had let Claire make three batches, each time mounding the flour, cutting in the butter, sprinkling on the salt and the baking powder, then, as quickly as possible, with a few pats and prods, pushing the dough together, rolling it out, and—pop, pop, pop—cutting it with the biscuit cutter. The difference between Lois and Mama was that for Lois there was no picking up the leftover dough and prodding it into a less delicious second batch. Lois cut the outlines into randomly shaped biscuits and set them on another baking sheet; when those came out of the oven, she said, “Here’s what you need to know about geometry. Taste this.”
They were crispy, flaky, and buttery—all edges, no centers. Claire walked into the empty kitchen, dressed and ready for the school bus. It took her five minutes to get out the flour, the butter, the baking powder, and the salt. Her batch would be a surprise for Papa. The night before, she’d been reading
Jo’s Boys
—late, just the little light on beside her bed—when he’d knocked on the door and peeped in. His hair was standing on end. He smiled and came in, sat on the bed. When he saw what she was reading, he laughed and said, “Well, at least that’s something I can make head or tail of,” and then, “Your mama is a hare and I am a tortoise, and, Claire, I sure hope you can find another creature to be, because I don’t think either of those works.”
She had given him a little kiss on the cheek and said that she would be a cat.
He said, “That’s a good one, sweetie,” and went down the stairs to the bathroom.
The oven was always lit for warmth, so when she tested the temperature by sticking her hand in (it was plenty hot), she didn’t wonder where Mama was. Mama couldn’t stay away from Annie, and she was always tramping across the south field to Joe’s house, wondering if they needed anything. Papa, of course, would be in the barn, the first place he went every morning. Claire had heard him, almost before dawn, going down the stairs, coughing, talking to himself. That was how she knew that the day had begun: when she began to wake up and think—what was she going to wear, what did she have to do, what was there to put up with, what was there to look forward to. She had started her day like this for as long as she could remember.
Her hands didn’t work as quickly or as lightly as Lois’s, and she had to push her glasses up her nose with her wrist, but the biscuits looked handsome as they went into the oven, round and tall, three across and four down. As she was closing the oven door, Mama blew in and exclaimed, “What in the world are you doing?”
“Making bis—”
“Oh, good Heaven! Oh, good Heaven!” said Mama. “Who’s going to eat them?”
“Papa will.”
“No, no, no!” exclaimed Mama.
It was long after the moment when Claire knew that Papa was dead (though what she imagined was not him lying under the Osage-orange hedge, but him lying in the middle of the road, flat on his back) that Mama actually said the words. Mama started crying and coughing, then sniffling and blowing her nose, and as long as the words were not said, Claire didn’t have to react, didn’t have to feel that thing that she was going to feel, that thing that was like an empty house with the windows smashed and the paint peeling and the pillars of the porch broken and the porch roof itself collapsing, which was something she had never seen, but became something she would never forget.
About the Author
Jane Smiley is the author of numerous novels, including
A Thousand Acres
, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, as well as five works of nonfiction and a series of books for young adults. In 2001 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2006 she received the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. She lives in northern California.
An A.A. Knopf Reading Group Guide
Some Luck
by Jane Smiley
The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group’s discussion of
Some Luck
, the engrossing, vividly textured new novel by beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jane Smiley.
Discussion Questions
1. What do you think the title means? Whose luck does it refer to? Is it only good or bad luck, or does the word “luck” shift in connotation as the novel goes forward?
2. Each chapter in the novel takes place over the course of one year. How does Smiley use this structure to propel her story?
3. Rosanna assigns personality traits to each of her children in infancy. When those traits prove true, do you think it’s because of nurture—her and Walter’s influence—or nature—personalities fully formed at birth?
4. How does Smiley use the children’s points of view at all ages—including when they are very small—to show their development and coming-of-age in real time? What are some of the memorable traits that carry from infancy to young adulthood for each of the five children?
5. How does Mary Elizabeth’s death affect Rosanna? How does it change her relationship with the children who follow?
6. Throughout the story, Frank is described as persistent, if not out-right stubborn. How does this quality help him in his life? Does it hinder him?
7. Variations on the story of Lucky Hans appear several times in the novel, including the version told by Opa to Frank in 1924, Lillian’s version remembered by Henry in 1947, and Arthur’s tale of Frank and the golden egg in 1952. What point is Smiley making by changing the mythology?
8. Over the course of the three decades
Some Luck
spans, various characters embrace or resist new technology—Walter and the tractor, Rosanna and electricity, Joey’s farming techniques, Frank’s study of German warfare. How does Smiley use their reactions to deepen our understanding of these characters and to show the pas-sage of time?
9. On
this page
, Eloise says to Frank, “Almost everyone sees things, but not everyone notices them.” What does she mean, and why is it fitting that she says this to Frank, of all her nephews and nieces? How does Frank exemplify the difference between seeing and noticing, especially as he uses his keen sense of “vision” to lead him throughout his life?
10. What does Walter think and feel during the scene at the well? What do his decisions at that moment say about his own personality and the circumstances of the times? Why doesn’t he tell Rosanna about it until many years later?
11. What are examples of the different kinds of secrets that come in the novel—from those held by individuals to those of institutions, such as banks or the government? Do you have the sense that the book suggests a hierarchy of secrecy, or are all secrets equally dangerous?
12. How do you understand Andy’s identity crises and her other internal conflicts within the context of the novel? How do they reflect her relationship with Frank as well as the political and sociological forces at work during these beginning days of the Cold War?
13. What role do faith and religion play in the early parts of the novel? What about for the subsequent generation? Would you say that religion is related to the theme of luck?
14. Joey is distraught to learn of Jake’s death on
this page
. Later, on
this page
, he tells Lois, “I don’t get over things.” Is this why he’s so suited to farming? And does he, eventually, learn to get over things?
15. On Walter’s forty-seventh birthday, he lets each of his children select an item from a box he’d kept locked away. Joey chooses the sprig of lavender, Lillian the oriole feather, and Henry the gold coin; Claire was given the handkerchief; and Rosanna saves the photograph of Walter during the Great War for Frank. What do these totems represent?
16. Rosanna reflects on
this page
, “Well, that’s what a war did for you—it made you look around at your shabby house and your modest family and give thanks for what you had and others had lost.… It made you stop talking about what you wished for, because, in the end, that might bring bad luck.” Frank was lucky and survived the war, but he’s far from unscathed when he returns home. Do his experiences verify or contradict Rosanna’s claim about the effects of war? How does what happened to him in Europe ripple throughout the rest of his life, as well as the lives of his family?
17. How do the generations of men engage differently in the wars of their times? What does their involvement show about their respective personalities, the nature of war, and America’s evolving role in world conflict?
18. How does parenting change from one generation to the next? Compare Lillian and Andy to Rosanna, and Arthur and Frank to Walter. And what about the roles of the sexes?
19. On
this page
, Walter walks near the Osage-orange hedge: “Every year, Joe said, as Walter always had, that he was going to pull it up, but he never did—the roots had probably spread everywhere, and taking the thing out would be a major pain in the neck. There was always a reason not to bother. Walter touched one of the thorns. He was used to the hedge, but the thorns still seemed menacing.” What, if anything, do you think the Osage-orange hedge stands for, in the book as a whole? What metaphors are at work here?
20. By the end of
Some Luck
, Henry is just becoming an adult and Claire is still a child. What do you think might be ahead for them in the next book(s) of this trilogy?
21. Did your knowledge that
Some Luck
is the first of a trilogy affect your reading of the novel? In what ways is the conclusion of the book definitive, full circle, and in what ways does it leave things open-ended?
Suggested Reading
Wendell Berry,
Hannah Coulter
Willa Cather,
O Pioneers!
Louise Erdrich,
The Plague of Doves
John le Carré,
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Philipp Meyer,
The Son
Ruth Ozeki,
All Over Creation
Marilynne Robinson,
Gilead
Wallace Stegner,
Crossing to Safety
John Steinbeck,
The Grapes of Wrath
Elizabeth Strout,
Olive Kitteridge
