Review

Good Faith

By Jane Smiley

Published by Faber

Jane Smiley is nothing if not eclectic in her interests. A Thousand Acres, her Pulitzer Prize-winning adaptation of King Lear, was set on a farm in the American Midwest, Moo is a humorous university campus novel and her last book, Horse Heaven, immersed the reader in the murky, high-stakes world of horse racing and breeding. In Good Faith, she surprises us once more, taking us back to the heady days of the 1980s real estate frenzy.

It takes a great writer to make the American residential housing market interesting (Richard Ford managed it in Independence Day), but Smiley has the skills. She has concocted a wonderful array of realistic characters and set them free in a believable, sleepy, New England town, guiding them gently but firmly to their fates.

Joe Stratford is a small-town realtor, single, quietly doing well for himself, reasonably happy and an honorary member of his dead high school girlfriend’s family, the Baldwins. Gordon Baldwin has spent his life taking chances and coming out on top, but with the appearance of suave, smooth-talking Marcus Burns in town, he may have agreed to a risk too far.

Marcus persuades Gordon and Joe that the time is right to buy a local country estate for redevelopment. Of course, this takes a huge amount of money, which the local Savings and Loan bank is curiously eager to lend. Unsurprisingly, things start to get complicated, especially for Joe, who begins an affair with Gordon’s (married) daughter, Felicity…

This is a pacy, riveting and very sexy novel, written with verve and sprightly good humour. Smiley is clearly having a good time with her characters, but she is also cleverly highlighting the insanity of an economic boom based almost entirely on unrealistic optimism and the abuse of good faith.

Reviewed by James Smith, Booktrust website editor

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