Early Warning

Fiction by Jane Smiley.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This is the sequel to the book Some Luck, which I read recently. Apparently it is the centerpiece to a trilogy about this family, so there should be a third book forthcoming.

Early Warning covers the family during the time period from the fifties through the seventies. It was less engaging to me that the first book, maybe because I like the Depression period better than the Swinging Sixties. (Which is weird of me, I know.) It could also be because it was covering many more characters as the family grew and branched out. This meant that when the author hopped back and forth between characters (which didn't bother me in the first book), I started getting lost and wondering whom we were talking about. Another factor here was that I started to truly dislike some of the people, and so was annoyed whenever the story moved to those individuals.

In any case, I found it much more difficult to read than the earlier novel, and a bit of a chore to slog through the 476 pages. Not a thumbs-up...