A review by ldv
Private Life by Jane Smiley

3.0

The author was smart to give you some of the ending of the story at the beginning of the book (hint for all those who sin by reading the last pages or chapter first: the author makes you do so here, so don't bother). The story then goes back (40-50? years) and starts at the "beginning." The names and objects mentioned in the prologue are the only things really that helped pull me through the book. As the items are encountered you almost check them off. Otherwise there is little overt conflict to propel the story. It's simply the account of one woman's life, mostly regarding her dull marriage to a astronomer/physicist who sees conspiracy theories around him. Her character is very interesting, and there a good sense of the history of the time period (late 1800/early 1900), but it's nothing too exciting.