Smiling on Iowa: Jane Smiley’s latest novel debuts at book festival Oct. 5

IOWA CITY - Jane Smiley's novel new, 'Some Luck,” is the first book of a trilogy that follows a family with Iowa roots from 1920 through 2019.

'That was the initial idea,” Smiley says in a phone interview from her home in California, 'to write the whole hundred years. ... I wanted the characters, many of them, to go through a whole life cycle. It just fascinates me how your view on your life changes as you go through your life.”

'Some Luck” covers the years 1920 to 1953. The entire epic is largely finished. The third book in the trilogy, which Smiley admits she's 'still fiddling with,” is set for release a year from now, four years before the fictional story ends in 2019.

What does that mean for Smiley's tale?

'It means I have to do just a tiny bit of science fiction, and we can decide in about four years whether I knew what I was talking about.” It's a challenge the Pulitzer Prize-winning author is enjoying.

'I think it is interesting to take what's happening in your world and try to extend it in a logical way.”

Smiley worked to ensure the century-long story she's telling has 'the energy of one book,” but noted that length was a determining factor in how the tale would be published.

'Nobody wants a 1,200 pages book,” she says.

Grounding the book in Iowa soil was essential to Smiley's project.

'The most important choice that a culture makes about themselves is how they feed themselves,” she says. 'What Iowa chooses to grow, and how that informs the food culture, is really essential to who Americans are, at least in the 20th century.”

Iowa plays a key role in Smiley's own story, as well. She arrived in Iowa City in the early 1970s because her then husband had been accepted to the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Smiley found a job with a woman who made small stuffed versions of high school mascots, but had grander ambitions. She remembers attending a party at which, 'I basically talked my way into a class; then I talked my way into a master's program; and then I wormed my way into the Workshop.”

She lived in and around Iowa City for many years before accepting a teaching position at Iowa State University where she taught until the mid-1990s. In 1992, she won the Pulitzer Prize for 'A Thousand Acres,” a retelling of Shakespeare's 'King Lear” set in Iowa. She said she's looking forward to launching her book at the Iowa City festival and appearing in Ames the next day.

'Iowa City sort of formed me, and then Ames let me blossom, you know. So I owe a lot to Iowa.”

BOOK FESTIVAL

'What: Jane Smiley reads from 'Some Luck” as part of the Iowa City Book Festival

'Where: The Englert Theatre, 221 E. Washington St., Iowa City

'When: 1 p.m. Oct. 5

'Cost: Free