Ordinary Love and Good Will

By: Jane Smiley

Narrated by: LJ Ganser, Suzanne Toren

From Jane Smiley, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Thousand Acres: a pair of novellas chronicling difficult choices that reshape the dynamics of two very different families.

In Ordinary Love, Smiley focuses on a woman's infidelity and the lasting, indelible effects it leaves on her children long after her departure. Good Will describes a father who realizes how his son has been affected by his decision to lead a counterculture life and move his family to a farm. As both stories unfold, Smiley gracefully raises the questions that confront all families with the characteristic style and insight that has marked all of her work.

©1989 Jane Smiley (P)2014 Audible Inc.

The price of a father’s arrogance.

Another Smiley masterpiece - one that deals with the intimate decisions parents make that inevitably shape a child.

Interesting tone in both stories, but uneven results

You realize how important the reader is to the success of a story on Audible. The reader of first story here seemed to catch the right tone of Smiley’s prose and delivered its message just right, even though the message was rather diffused and confused (as life is sometimes).

The reader of the second story had a very assertive tone that, to me, didn’t really reflect the proper tone, unless Smiley’s intent was to make the narrator a dominating know-it-all whose arrogance led to ruining his family’s country life. A different reader might had adopted a less aggressive, more reflective tone and made the story less dark and more nuanced, but not less sad in outcome. Had I read the book rather than listened, I would have enjoyed the second story a lot, but I ended up just not liking the guy at all and feeling sorry for his wife and son.

Not her best work

I really enjoyed this author’s book Horse Heaven but these two novellas didn’t thrill me. The first Ordinary Love was the better of the two. Good Will was a tale of a live-off-the-land family with a bizarre son who does violent acts against a classmate. The parents do not at all seem surprised by his behavior or take action to cure him. I felt the parents were in denial and weird.

Enjoyed these novellas!

They both definitely sucked me in. I think I like the second one more than the first one; definitely time well spent.

Superb Novellas

These were two very different family stories - - one from the perspective of a woman, one from a man. Smiley is adept at developing characters that come into focus and yet the reader must pay attention to fully appreciate the subtleties of her understanding of the characters and recognize her genius at crafting fiction.