Initially, Lucky captured my interest when a very young Jodie Rattler, living in St Louis, goes to the racetrack with her uncle and he luckily places large winning bet Jodie is given what seems to be a fortune in rolled up bills, tucks it away in a very safe place, and the story proceeds in a very different direction.

Told in blunt, lackluster language, the story plodded along slowly and never recaptured my heart or my interest again. Ultimately, Jodie becomes somewhat of a folk rock celebrity. Her life moves to other locations that are all bland in description. . Blah. Blah. Blah. Never do the characters jump off the page. Never did the story draw me in.

References to singing sensations of the time ( 50s and 60s) seem to go on and on in what felt to me like sequences of name dropping. Lyrics of songs appeared ad nauseum. Lacking passion, the plot droned on until I just couldn’t care less where it wound up. At times I had to skim through endless dull sequences just to continue to read until the end. And then when I reached the end there was a big twist, turn around, about face that didn’t seem to belong in the same book I had been reading.

I am rarely disappointed this much by books I select to read and by authors whose works. I have previously admired I am truly sad to rate this book a two star read. Thank you Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor publishers for an ARC in exchange for my review.

An interesting story that I enjoyed until the unexpected ending, which felt disjointed. Still a good read.
Many thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This novel was fine... until the very end. What a ridiculous way to end a story. Very disappointing.

Well written but the ending throws the entire experience of the book into question. It didn't work to complete the story for me and open it up in a new light. It actually just made me feel like I'd wasted my time instead of having some incredible revelation.

Smiley is an excellent story teller but that narrative device just didn't work here.

Jodie believes herself to be lucky when her uncle takes her to the racetracks and gives her $86
from his winnings based on the horses she chose. The roll of forty-three $2 bills will be her good
luck charm as she goes through life.
Raised by a single mother, Jodie has always been interested in music. She has earned royalties
from songs she wrote while still in school. The money is invested by her uncle, allowing her to live
life as she chooses. We follow her career from backup singer to a moderately successful folksinger.
As time passes, she begins to examine her choices and her relationships with family and others
she has encountered. Interesting ending.
#Lucky #NetGalley

Lucky is Jodie Rattler in Jane Smiley’s latest book of historical fiction coming out April 23. Jodie attributes the beginning of her lucky life to a horse race in St. Louis in 1955 when she was 6 in which she walked away with a roll of two-dollar bills thanks to her uncle. She keeps the roll as a good luck charm throughout her life.

The book becomes a biography of fictional Jodie as she develops an interest in folk music and finds some success as a singer-songwriter. The songs she writes earn her a steady income that her uncle invests wisely, providing a bankroll to land anywhere she wants, whether it is New York City, England, St. Thomas, or Los Angeles. Singing first with a band called the Freak-Outs, she later branches out on her own making albums, performing at gigs, and filling in for singers in other bands.

Along her journey, she becomes familiar with recording studios, backstages, and tours in a time when famous singers like Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Joni Mitchell are making a name for themselves. She witnesses firsthand how the music is changing from folk music to pop, and she adjusts her style of singing accordingly. Other names like Lyle Lovett are dropped into the story as he invites her on stage to sing a duet with him. Many of the lyrics of the songs she writes are woven into the narrative.

While her musical life is satisfying, Jodie senses that something is missing in her life, and it is not that she never became a big star. Finding true love at an early age, she finds herself leaving it behind and experiences what she thinks of as life as a feminist: being able to conduct her life like men did such as sleeping around, logging 23 affairs by the time she reaches her 30th birthday.

As the novel draws to a close, a startling turn occurs causing readers to question what they’ve just read but no spoilers here!

Jane Smiley won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992 for A Thousand Acres, a story based on William Shakespeare's King Lear. Lucky is her 34th book. Smiley has tackled a variety of topics during her long career, writing about everything from abolitionists to prostitutes, from horse racing to Hollywood, but this reader finds her farm stories to be her very best.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting February 24, 2024.

I would like to thank Alfred A. Knopf and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

2.5 Stars

This is a story of family, fame, music, love, luck and a life lived on one’s own terms.

This story begins when Jodie, as a young child, wins a roll of two-dollar bills at the racetrack. It is what drives her belief that luck is on her side, and for the most part, it is. She becomes a musician, and while she doesn’t have quite the same level of fame as the more iconic musicians of the time, she seems quietly content to be adjacent to them, and play with them occasionally.

Her journeys take her to places where she meets several men who she spends some time with, but never seems to be interested in a long term relationship, and while they may occasionally turn up fondly in a memory, she is content to be on her own, as well. She ‘enjoys’ them, she just doesn’t *need* them.

Her family, especially her parents, weave in and out of this story, as she is very close to them, if not always physically, but she does seem to realize how frail they have become, and so she takes some time away from her music to spend time with them.

This isn’t a light and fluffy story, there are darker moments now and then, especially as she watches her parents fading away, but they aren’t traumatic.

While there were a few positives to this, I really didn’t need or enjoy the plethora of ‘song lyrics’ written by Jodie that were sprinkled throughout this novel. I felt that they detracted from the story, and the story would have been better without them.


Pub Date: 23 Apr 2024

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, Knopf

Disclosure: Received an uncorrected ARC of this book from NetGalley and GP Knopf/Borzoi Books/Penguin Random House LLC (Thank you!) in exchange for an honest review.

Reading this novel was like tediously trudging along a snow-filled trail that ultimately leads you nowhere. I really wanted to like this book as a fan of the author, but I was quite disappointed. There are elements that warrant the spoiler warnings you can see in other reviews, but these components aren't enough to save the story.

The writing felt unusually flat and, at times, like a huge run-on sentence written by a child for a school project. I am perplexed at how a story that should be imbued with excitement and enthusiasm was so incredibly boring and lacking feeling. The main character was so one dimensional, so matter of fact and so lacking any sense of personality, it was hard to care about her.

Framing herself as lucky, she describes her whole life but it does not feels like the story of a woman who has led a vibrant and full life, instead she comes across like an unemotional robot. There were elements that one would think "oh, how lucky!" such as falling into a quasi-successful music career and finding great financial success but it did not feel as though she was very lucky, it felt more like she wasted most of the opportunities laid at her feet.

Those willing to dive into this book, be forewarned, the song lyrics embedded throughout the novel are cringe-inducing. The ending is the most powerful thing about this book and it left me feeling extremely glum.

Jodie Rattler grew up with a single mother in St. Louis, a city she loves and to which she continues to return. Influenced by her family’s interest in music and the folk singers and other musicians of the 1960s, her talent brings her to the fringes of success, providing enough income to support her. Always independent but with strong family ties, she makes conscious choices how she will live her life. As she passes through the stages of her life, she reflects back, determining whether they were the right alternatives for her.

Well written by Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley, this will appeal to fans of literary fiction, although I fear some readers may tire of the constant musical references and Jodie’s wanderings around England. For people of a certain age and fans of the folk rock genre, this is a nostalgic read recounting the songs and singers of the 60s, as well historical events dating from the early 60s. There are some very poignant and insightful observations of the various stages of women’s lives and the options open to them.

I don’t like to write spoilers. Suffice to say that there is a turn at the end of the novel that will cause some to say “brava” and others to say “what the…..?”. Read the book to see in which camp you will be.


Thanks to @NetGalley and @aaknopf for the DRC.

I would like to thank Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor, as well as Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book as an ARC. I did not like this book. I did finish it, but it was tough going. It os a hard book to review without giving away spoilers, so I will do a brief synopsis then give a spoiler alert, if you do not want the spoilers.
Jodie Rattler is a woman living in St Louis, at the outset. She is being raised by a single mother. One day her Uncle takes her to the race track where he wins a lot of money. He gives her 86 dollars and she rolls up the bills and keeps them for good luck. In High School, she has some friends and often mentions a girl, only by her description- "the gawky girl". This girl turns up at times during the narrative. Jodie goes to college and becomes a folk singer/songwriter of some small fame. She gives her earnings to her Uncle to invest. Like the roll of bills from the race track, she really doesn't seem to use it, not for her self or for her family. The book continues on in this way, as Jodie has some romantic relationships, writes and sings, and interacts with her family and some friends. The writing is very odd. It is awkward, and stilted. The story is meandering and takes forever to get to a conclusion. OK SPOILER ALERT. The book itself ends with Jodie going back to her High School Reunion.She meets up with the gawky girl ( who is now a writer) and they talk. The last chapter is an epilogue, written by the "real" Jodie Rattler, who says that everything we just read was written by the "gawky Girl", and was not accurate. Ok, once I got my mind wrapped around this twist- is this meant to be a Meta kind of thing, a statement on writing and truth in writing, came another twist. All of a sudden we are plunged into an Global disaster, a combination of Climate Change, War and political candidates. It was jarring, unneeded and dumb. I am not sure what Jane Smily tried to do here. However, if it was to keep me from reading anything else she wrote- well she succeeded.

This is a fascinating story by Jane Smiley. In Lucky, we meet Jodie Rattler, who at six traveled to horse track with her uncle and from then on believed herself lucky. Rattler tells us her story in first person from age 6 to becoming a star. It's very interesting and gripping, even the minutiae of education as you follow her trajectory. Jodie lives almost a half life however, missing something that makes her full. What happens at the end will surprise you and may answer that question for her and all of us.

This meta novel was very enjoyable to me and I am glad I read it. I am not sure that it is for EVERYONE however, it is certainly not a typical rock star rise to stardom story. It's literaray and it is quite different. The story is told in an almost laissez faire style. It's Jane Smiley though! So if you are a fan of literature you will enjoy it!
#knopfpantheon&vintage #knopf #lucky #janesmiley

WOW. my god this was goood. i dont even know what else to say except oh my lord. thanks so much for the ARC and this one will probs become a new classic.

I just couldn’t get into this book, and gave up about a quarter of the way through. The reason was that it felt more like a memoir than a novel, with lots of details about growing up in the 1950’s in St. Louis but not much else. I couldn’t figure out what the point was. Maybe it picks up after a bit, but I was getting too bored to find out. Alas, so many books to read, so little time…

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

In the latest from Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley we follow Jodie Rattler from the time she is six, at a race track with her uncle (who will continue to be influential in her life) through her old age. We travel with her through her youth in St. Louis, her college years as a music major at Penn State, being a working musician and then her “lost years” in England. She returns to the U. s., living in New York, again as a working musician before her return to her hometown of St. Louis to care for her aging relatives as they die one by one. Smiley also makes herself a minor character.

I have often been a fan of Smiley’s work, although there have, occasionally been publications I wasn’t so enamored of. I actually liked this gentle book quite a bit until the out of nowhere ending. I get that Smiley thinks we are going in a calamitous direction, but the ending just didn’t seem to fit with what came before. Not a bad book, but I really can’t square the books final pages with the rest.

While reading, the word banal kept coming to mind. Yet this is Jane Smiley. Not an author with whom I would associate such an adjective. Now that I’ve finished, I see that the bulk of the book is a novel within a novel,,penned by ‘the gawky girl’. Presumably it’s Smiley’s intention to make the fictional author’s work read this way. So, much of the narrative is a dull account of a woman’s life - her homes, family, school, love for St Louis, the many walks taken. The more interesting bits - men, music - are given some space, but less. As bio-fiction goes, it’s tolerably done, but not exciting, or moving, or penetrating. And then you get to the apocalyptic epilogue, which turns much of it on its head.
Strange, late, depressing. An odd book, then. Not my favorite.

Because this author is prolific and one of the greats, I wanted to give this a try. I found it a bit slow, meandering, and hard to sink my teeth into. Contemporary fiction is so hit or miss for me…

This was quite disappointing. I found the start very rambling with too many names to allow clarity. I felt that the meat of the story was blurred by tge overlong start and unsatisfying end. I have read other Smiley novels and this was not up to my expectations.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Overall, I just didn’t care for this story. It was a bit of a slog to make it through and I also didn’t like the political aspects that were included. There may be readers who like this book, but it just wasn’t for me.

Thanks to #NetGalley, the publisher and the author for this ARC.

The title of this not only should be Lucky but “Traveling Musician,” even though she didn't travel as a musician most of the time but did write songs when she was in high school and when she got older and traveled around Europe, she wrote a lot too. She was in a few bands too as a substitute. She really didn't have a job per se but settled in NY and made videos for MTV and stayed active in the music scene it seems. I loved the setting of the 60s because of the music and artists she loved back then and I so do I. ides her writing songs and performing with bands once in a while. She never seemed to be doing anything permanently besides writing songs and getting people once in a while to record her music even at 47 old and singing at small concerts and gigs.

The book was first person and it was set in the present but looked back at her life. I loved the family aspect of it with her aunts and uncles living in St. Louis where she ended up mostly and her mom.

The epilogue was set in the way future it seems and it was definitely interesting.

To be honest, in order to be a writer you have to be an avid spy

from Lucky by Jane Smiley
Jodie Rattler tells her life story, how lucky she has been. Her pregnant, unwed mother wanted her. Her uncle took her to the racetrack and she won $82 lucky dollars that she never parts with. By chance, she saw the college she knew she wanted to attend. She walked away from the love of her life to claim her own career and life. She made enough money as a singer/songwriter to never have to worry.

Jodie grows up, takes lovers, sings her music, buys a cabin in the woods and a house in her hometown of St. Louis, learns how to connect with family and make friends, experiences the end of life of her grandparents and mother.

Jodie talks about the events and times of my own life: the Cuban Missile Crisis bookended by climate change angst; “Sing Along with Mitch” and folk music; 77 Sunset Strip; concerns about rising American fascism.

It is a full life, simply presented.

But the novel isn’t what it seems. And in the Epilogue, Jamie Ring reveals the identity of the ‘gawky girl’ who haunts her life like a ghost, and we learn something about art and how writers transform life into fiction, and questions the very concept of luck.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.