By 1880s American standards, Margaret Mayfield is an old maid. Both her sisters have married and are starting families of their own, but Margaret, plain and quiet at 27, seems destined for a life at home with her mother.

While riding her bicycle in the fields outside her Missouri town, she meets Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early. A handsome astronomer who believes he’s on the verge of fame and fortune for his brilliant work, he marries Margaret and moves her to the naval base in San Francisco where he manages the observatory. And that’s where the story gets a little weird.

At first, Margaret and Andrew are happy, or at least content; she cooks and cleans, he works and writes. She strives to understand his passionate study of, essentially, air and distant objects in the sky. Through the years, Margaret carves out a life for herself, exploring San Francisco, doing charity work and joining a knitting club (which partakes in the occasional game of poker). She makes friends, the most vibrant of whom is gossipy, tomboyish Dora, a journalist who travels the world in search of her next big story.

But as Margaret broadens her world, Andrew shrinks into his own, shunning friendship in favor of solitary hours of studying the skies. As the years pass, his reticence gives way to eccentricity, then paranoia. With World War II looming, Andrew becomes something much more dangerous—to himself, to Margaret and to everyone they know.

Author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley again creates in Private Life a quiet, elegant story that is somehow both sweeping and intimate. From the great San Francisco fire of 1906 to the internment camps of World War II, Smiley uses the stormy backdrop of American history to examine one marriage, with its sacrifices both small and great.

Copyright 2010 BookPage Reviews.

This month's best paperbacks for reading groups include novels from Jane Smiley and Carolyn Parkhurst, and an Emily Dickinson biography that brings the reclusive artist into the spotlight.

SEEKING HAPPY ENDINGS
The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst, author of the best-selling novel The Dogs of Babel, is a captivating contemporary mystery with a spirited narrator at its heart. Novelist and widow Octavia Frost has been estranged from her son Milo for four years. When Milo, a rock musician, is accused of murdering his girlfriend, Octavia decides it's time to reactivate their relationship. Traveling to San Francisco, where Milo has been arrested, she hopes to discover if the accusations against him are true. Mixed in with the story of this investigative quest are bits of Octavia's own writing (revised endings, all of them happy, to her already published novels), and the presence of these extra narratives gives the novel a multifaceted feel. Octavia is a perceptive and eloquent narrator of events, and her pursuit of the truth—during which she crosses paths with expensive lawyers, annoying reporters and hard-living musicians—makes for delightful reading. Full of surprises, this is an intriguing novel from an author who consistently produces provocative fiction.

AN AMERICAN SAGA
With Private Life, Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley presents a poignant look at marriage and the ways in which relationships change over time. Margaret Mayfield saves herself from spinsterhood by marrying, at the age of 27, a man she knows little about. Her husband, a quirky scientist named Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early, is stationed at a naval base in San Francisco, and the two settle there in 1905. Margaret immerses herself in Andrew's life, acting as his housekeeper, chauffeur and secretary, but as she soon learns, maintaining a sense of self while being part of a pair is one of marriage's greatest challenges. When Andrew's unorthodox theories about science and the universe take on a hysterical tone, Margaret finds herself with a new concern—that her husband might be mad. Spanning six decades, this well-plotted novel ranks among Smiley's best. It's a compassionate, richly detailed exploration of the difficulties of intimacy and identity.

TOP PICK FOR BOOK CLUBS
A must-read for fans of the elusive poet, Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds is the first substantive biography of Dickinson to appear in 10 years. Author Lyndall Gordon offers revelations aplenty in a narrative that's both fascinating and illuminating. Arguing persuasively that epilepsy was the main reason Dickinson lived as a recluse, Gordon offers a lively portrayal of the artist, depicting her as a woman tormented by personal passions and by the betrayal of her brother Austin, whose illicit affair with the beautiful Mabel Todd tore the family apart. The legal clashes over Dickinson's poetry that took place among family members after her death are surprising and unfold with genuine drama. Drawing on the poet's medical records, diaries and correspondence, Gordon has crafted an irresistible investigation of a distant figure. Thanks to this rewarding work, a notoriously enigmatic artist seems more accessible and human.

 

In 1905 Missouri, quiet 27-year-old Margaret Mayfield marries Capt. Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early, a naval officer and an astronomer who is considered a genius and a little odd. By the time they make their way by train to their new life in California, the reader understands that Captain Early is actually somewhat crazy in his obsessions. This is a conclusion that Margaret herself is slow to draw, even as their lives together grow more troubled. Smiley (Ten Days in the Hills) reminds us how difficult it was for all but the boldest women to extract themselves from suffocating life situations 100 years ago. While dealing with intimate matters, this novel also has an epic sweep, moving from Missouri in the 1880s to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, up to the Japanese internment camps of World War II, with the scenes from Margaret's Missouri childhood reminiscent of Willa Cather. VERDICT Not a highly dramatic page-turner but rather a subtle and thoughtful portrayal of a quiet woman's inner strength, this may especially appeal to readers who have enjoyed Marilynne Robinson's recent Gilead and Home. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/09.]—Leslie Patterson, Brown Univ. Lib., Providence, RI

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Thousand Acres delivers a slow-moving historical antiromance in her bleak 13th novel. In the early 1880s, Margaret Mayfield is rescued from old maid status by Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early, an astronomer whose questionable discoveries have taken him from the scientific elite to a position as a glorified timekeeper at a remote California naval base. Margaret's world is made ever smaller as the novel progresses, with no children to distract her and Andrew more excited by his telescope than his wife. Isolation and boredom being two dominant themes, the book is a slow burn, punctuated by detours into the larger world: the Wobblies, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and both world wars. The old-fashioned language can be off-putting, though it does make the reader feel like a reluctant second wife to Andrew as his failed scientific theories are revealed in tedious detail and the gruesome monotony of marriage is portrayed in a repellant but fascinating fashion. Thus, when Margaret finally realizes her marriage is "relentless, and terrifying," it feels wonderfully satisfying, but the proceeding 100 pages offer a trickle of disappointment and a slackening of suspense that saps hard-earned goodwill. (May)