Trailer Park Tuesday: Some Luck by Jane Smiley

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.

In this week of Thanksgiving, I'm giving thanks that, within the next six months, we'll have not one, but two new Jane Smiley novels in our hands.  Some Luck, which came out last month, is the first in a planned trilogy called "The Last Hundred Years."  The next volume in the series, Early Warning, is scheduled to be released in May.  These are family sagas in the true sense of the word--rich and detailed genealogies of one American family, the Langdons, who live in central Iowa.  The Langdons are a farm family--"I wouldn't say they're prosperous, but they're getting by," Smiley tells us in this beautifully-produced trailer for Some Luck.  The first novel follows the fortunes and misfortunes of patriarch Walter and all his offspring in the years 1920 to 1953; Early Warning continues the story through 1986.  "They're enfolded into the history they live through," Smiley says.  I myself can't wait to be folded into the dirt of the Langdon family and I look forward to reading more about them in the coming years.  First up, however, is the Smiley novel on my Essentials list: A Thousand Acres.  Yes, I have some catching up to do...  (P.S.  Every time, I start to get stressed about the height and depth of my Essentials reading pile, I'll just go back to the very kind and wise comment Ms. Smiley left on my Facebook post about the list: "When you live in an age of wonderful writing, as we do, you can't read everything, and you must pray for reincarnation as a librarian."  I love that sentiment so much, I might just cross-stitch it and frame it for my office wall...or, at the very least, put it on a T-shirt.)