Contemporary Literary Criticism | Smiley, Jane - Margaret Forster (review date 30 April 1994)

Margaret Forster (review date 30 April 1994)

SOURCE: “Truly Interesting Horses,” in Spectator, Vol. 272, April 30, 1994, p. 39.

[In the following review, Forster lauds Smiley's Barn Blind.]

Marvellous, isn't it, how an author's first novel can suddenly be worth the risk of publishing when their sixth has hit every kind of jackpot? I bet Jane Smiley's Barn Blind was offered to UK publishers when it appeared in her own country. I bet it got turned down as ‘too American,’ that handy euphemism used both sides of the Atlantic to save a publisher from any real critical opinion and always meaning simply they don't like it. But once A Thousand Acres was such a success, hey presto, Barn Blind gets ‘discovered’.

But that's publishing, folks, and why complain, especially in this instance? I'll tell you why. It spoils the delight a first novel always brings—that terrific feeling of recognising, yes, here is...

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