The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "A Thousand Acres," Jane Smiley is actually a light-hearted soul who identifies more with the humor in her work than its serious overtones.
The author of 12 diverse novels says her favorite is "Horse Heaven," because of her personal love for her horses at her home in Northern California. Her next favorite is "The Greenlanders." Third place goes to "Moo," "because I think it's funny."
Smiley's newest novel, "Good Faith," is a funny/serious story about the real-estate world of the 1980s, and it's growing on her because it is being accepted so well by readers. "It's like your child who was slow," she said with a chuckle during a telephone interview from Chicago. "And then it blossomed — and you have a special affection for that child. I feel that about this book."
Besides its unremarkable jacket, why would anyone want to read a book about real estate? "It totally intrigues me, what it is that draws people to this book. I think it's a fun story. When I was reading the final draft myself, I found that I enjoyed it and it went down easy.
"I never know why people like a book. It's a niche product. Every reader has his novel and every novel has his reader. I just wish this book would revive the economy!"
Her main character is a divorced 40-year-old realtor in New Jersey named Joe Stratford. His overly religious parents are disappointed in him; he is "the elected son" of Gordon Baldwin, a slightly shady, 60-year-old developer.
Joe is a fair-minded, honest man who means well, but his intellectual side is underdeveloped. He can be taken. Smiley's story climbs inside his world and shows us his problems, especially when Marcus Burns, an IRS agent-turned-investment counselor, comes to town.
The novel is "a statement about the way we get seduced by other people into doing things we would not give ourselves permission to do," Smiley said. "If you tell a good story in a straightforward way and minimize authorial intrusion, you leave the reader free to read the book in a way that is appropriate to that reader."
In other words, a person who sells real estate may read this book and enjoy it without getting picked on, but another person who has had bad experiences with real estate agents may also enjoy it because it hits a chord.
Smiley's editor wanted her to "be more explicit about what I was getting at, but I said, 'No, I want the story to speak for itself.' Remember 'Metamorphosis' by Franz Kafka, about a guy, Gregor Samsa, who turns into a repulsive bug and you never know what it means? The genius of that story is that the author never supplies any critique of his own. He just tells the story."
Smiley resists even now taking a stand. "You can get yourself in trouble with all the real-estate agents in the country if you want to — but don't get me in trouble! I've never had a real-estate agent who didn't do a good job for me. It's a seductive world, though. In California, it's the biggest game in town. A real-estate agent can live pretty high off the hog if he's good."
During her research, she actually started feeling sorry for realtors, "because buyers will betray them all the time without any qualms. I don't think people are very considerate of real-estate agents — and they need to be resilient to deal with the vagaries of the public, and keep smiling and keep selling real estate."
Smiley admits to no organized pattern of research for this book. "Real estate is all around you. You see new developments every time you drive down the street. I went to open houses, read books and looked at the real-estate pages — but you don't have to know how to do it to write a novel about it. I'm very inquisitive, and so I pepper people with questions."
She also feels there is a lesson to be gained from her book. "If you have convictions and know what is right, you are less susceptible to that big sale than if you don't know what you believe in. But there's always a chance someone will be had. If you view a deal like a fantasy, you are bound to be disappointed. There is a real danger, too, for the real-estate agent. The danger to him is that the buyer and seller will have different ideas about the fantasy. That's what contracts are for — in California they're 20-30 pages long."
What Smiley enjoyed most about writing the book is dealing with "the morass of decision-making. Everyone has his own agenda, so you have to fall back on your own instincts and experience — and you still might make the wrong decision."
E-MAIL: dennis@desnews.com