LIDIE

After the heartbreak of her earlier experiences, a 19th-century American woman heads across the Atlantic Ocean.

When Lidie Newton returns to her hometown of Quincy, Illinois, from the Kansas Territory in 1857, having lost her abolitionist husband, her stillborn baby, her beloved horse, and an enslaved woman she hoped to guide to freedom, her dull older half sisters offer little comfort. Then her niece, Annie, just a year younger than Lidie and usually so busy with household chores that she’s practically a servant, lands a part in a play as well as an out-of-town patron who wants to support her acting career. Soon she’s proposing that Lidie join her in running away from home. In this sequel to The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton (1998), Smiley moves the troubles of 1850s America into the background as this unlikely pair board a ship, change their names, and start new lives in the Liverpool home of Mr. and Mrs. Mallory Cunningham. Lidie is now Helen Longbourn, lady’s maid to Anne Revere, the latter quickly recognized as a fresh new face in local theater. “Helen” is not always able to outrun the sorrows that haunt her, but Smiley gives her lots of avenues to try. She forms strong friendships with the Cunninghams’ butler and consumptive daughter, as well as with a local gardener and a handsome Irish fellow she meets on the street. But since this is Jane Smiley, her most effective healing will be delivered on hooves, at the racetrack: Mr. Cunningham purchases a horse named Toffee, whom Helen helps train and travels regionally to watch compete. She enjoys helping Anne prepare for parts in Macbeth and other plays; she reads Austen, Trollope, and Thackeray; she toys with falling in love again. Then Smiley swoops in with a twist that puts an abrupt end to the Helen Longbourn role. Perhaps Lidie, like the reader, can sense that none of her present plot arcs is really going anywhere very interesting. Except, perhaps, Volume 3.

The charm of Lidie’s thoughtful, curious, witty narration keeps our attention on a less cataclysmic round of adventures.