FIRST THOUGHTS

Private Life

AS usual with Jane Smiley, there’s a lot more going on here than might be expected from the central theme of an American marriage spanning the break from the 19th century to the 20th. Smiley likes to take the long view, and this is, if you like, a coming-of-age novel in which Margaret, married to a brilliant but increasingly obsessive man, grows up as a wife and as a woman.

Andrew is an astronomer but the oddities of his behaviour eventually declare themselves as full-blown mania.