Good Faith [Paperback]

Jane Smiley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 11, 2004

Greed. Envy. Sex. Property. In her subversively funny and genuinely moving new novel, Jane Smiley nails down several American obsessions with the expertise of a master carpenter.

Forthright, likable Joe Stratford is the kind of local businessman everybody trusts, for good reason. But it’s 1982, and even in Joe’s small town, values are in upheaval: not just property values, either. Enter Marcus Burns, a would-be master of the universe whose years with the IRS have taught him which rules are meant to be broken. Before long he and Joe are new best friends—and partners in an investment venture so complex that no one may ever understand it. Add to this Joe’s roller coaster affair with his mentor’s married daughter. The result is as suspenseful and entertaining as any of Jane Smiley’s fiction.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Opening a Jane Smiley novel is like slipping into a warm bath. Here are people we know, places where we grew up. But the comforting, unassuming tone of her work allows Smiley incredible latitude as a writer, and her books are full of surprises. Good Faith, a novel about greed and self-delusion set in the economic boom of the early 1980s, is no exception. Joe Stratford is an amiable, divorced real estate agent in an unspoiled small town called Rollins Hills. He takes it in stride when a married female friend pursues a love affair with him; he is more suspicious when a high-rolling newcomer named Marcus Burns begins to influence the business affairs of the men closest to Joe. Nevertheless, the promise of easy riches draws Joe into one of Burns's real estate development schemes, and then, ominously, into gold trading. The steps by which a nice guy can be lured into betraying his principles are delineated so sharply in Good Faith that you wonder how Joe cannot see them. Although he never quite manages to understand what has happened to him, he's granted a moment of grace at the close of the novel, a second chance that has nothing to do with money, ambition, or the tarnished American Dream. Since we live with the legacy of the self-serving 1980s, Smiley's novel seems as timely as if it were set in the present. Penetrating, readable fiction by one of our best writers and social critics. --Regina Marler --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Smiley's range as a writer is always surprising. Eschewing both the tragic dimension of A Thousand Acres and the satiric glee of Moo, her 12th book is a clever and entertaining cautionary tale about America's greedy decade of the 1980s. Narrator Joe Stratford is a genial, well-liked realtor in a small New England town who's respected for his honesty; even his divorce was friendly. When smooth-talking Marcus Burns comes to town, fresh from a decade working at the IRS, where he's learned how to manipulate the law to avoid paying taxes, he convinces Joe and other decent but na‹ve people that it's never been easier to get rich quick. Marcus envisions a multi-use golf club and housing development. With the help of the conniving president of the local S&L, he easily finds money to purchase Salt Key Farm, a beautiful estate on 580 acres. The reader knows that the bubble will burst, but not how or when; frissons of suspense keep building as Smiley describes the fine points of land assessment, soil evaluation, loan applications and permit hearings in surprisingly riveting detail. Joe's personal life, too, is a tightrope walk. He's having an affair with a married woman, Felicity Baldwin, the daughter of his mentor, Gordon. When that cools, he takes up with another woman who seems perfect, but who turns out to be as devious as Marcus. What makes the story beguiling is Smiley's appreciation of the varieties and frailties of human nature. Every character here is fresh and fully dimensional, and anybody who lived through the '80s will recognize them-and maybe themselves.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (May 11, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385721056
• ISBN-13: 978-0385721059
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #387,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars She continues to break out of genre after genre, April 26, 2003

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Good Faith (Hardcover)

Outrageous versatility is not something we readers look for in our favorite authors, but Jane Smiley, in book after book after book, refuses to be pinned down. She can write pathos, tragedy, slapstick, satire, mystery... Where will it end? Never and nowhere, we hope.
This is a novel about greed in the 80s, that decade when it seemed the Good Times would roll on forever. The story concerns an amiable, trusting, 'good' man who is lured down the shady paths of easy money. It's a story about principles, ambition viewed through the gauzy curtain that hides (not very well) The American Dream.
Smiley scores again.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars better than Moo, on par with A Thousand Acres, August 1, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Good Faith (Hardcover)

Jane Smiley tackles different material with almost every novel. Her Pulitzer-winning novel A Thousand Acres was a deft portayal of the demise of a family farm, her last effort explored the world of horse racing, and now she brings us into the 1980s world of real estate development in Good Faith. While her novels are captivating cultural history, it's her characters that remain her strength.

I know Joe. Sure, my friend isn't named Joe and isn't a real estate agent, but I know decent people like Joe who have a gift for the largely unrecognized jobs they do and who realize, at some point, that they're doing pretty well financially. In fact, recent polls suggest the vast majority of us, even those who are statistically lower class or in the upper percetages of incomes consider ourselves middle class but still not as well off as our friends. And I know a Marcus, too, who's a smooth-talking, good-natured fellow who inspires loyalty in people for no logical reason. And I know a Felicity or two who married because nearly everyone does but who doesn't quite fit the frat house her homelife seems to be. I know a few Betty and Gordon couples and the Davids as well. So, Smiley's characters have a vague familiarity, even as they each are distinct and engaging.

Even more importantly, Smiley understands the small, odd traits that people find attractive or off-putting in each other. When, for instance, Felicity reveals that she's not kind but that she is affectionate, we understand something about human behavior that we hadn't quite noticed before. Little moments like this one drive the novel seemingly effortlessly.

While I had no knowledge of and little interest in real estate, the characters and the impending demise or success of their business dealings drew me in. By the end, I even found the so-called topic of the novel relevant to recent economic events in the stock market and to political issues such as allowing for individual investment choices for social security. Now, thanks to Smiley, I also understand anew how people are shaped by economic events and how we make some of the major decisions of our lives.

Good Faith is a great read. The overt topic may be real estate development, but the novel's real subjects are relationships in many varieties. Just as you didn't need to know about Iowa farms to appreciate A Thousand Acres nor know about dentistry to enjoy The Age of Grief, if you're interested in a good story with realistic characters, you'll like Good Faith.

I hear, by the way, that a film version of The Age of Grief is forthcoming. To my mind, her novellas (that one and Ordinary Love & Good Will) are Smiley's strongest writing.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Smiley's always good, but..., June 13, 2005

By 

Victoria M. Ford (Saint Paul, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Good Faith (Hardcover)

My only complaint is that the book rushed itself to a conclusion. We spent hundreds of pages establishing (and destroying) relationships, exploring secrets, waiting waiting waiting for a happy ending... and the book takes care of all the open loops in the last 25 pages. Just didn't seem fair to the characters. Wouldn't they have more to say about what happens to them?

Otherwise: fun, a trip through the 80s, a reminder of how good fortune can make any of us crazy for just long enough to make a big mistake.