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Article: Smiley's people.
- Article from:
- Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL)
- Article date:
- March 7, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Chicago Tribune. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Patrick T. Reardon
Mar. 7--All the buzz about Jane Smiley's new novel "Ten Days in the Hills" (Knopf, 448 pages, $26) has to do with all the copulating its characters engage in. John Updike, no less, in a glowing review in The New Yorker, wrote, "The sexual descriptions set a new mark for explicitness in a work of non-pornographic intent."
Yet, in a recent interview, Smiley, who won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for "A Thousand Acres," said her new book is about a lot more than "plain old sex."
"Ten Days in the Hills" is modeled on "The Decameron" by Giovanni Boccaccio, a 14th Century work in which 10 people, seeking to escape the Black ...