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    Early Warning: A novel
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    Early Warning: A novel
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    Early Warning: A novel
    Audiobook18 hours

    Early Warning: A novel

    Written by Jane Smiley

    Narrated by Lorelei King

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From the Pulitzer Prize-winner: the second installment, following Some Luck, of her widely acclaimed, best-selling American trilogy, which brings the journey of a remarkable family with roots in the Iowa heartland into mid-century America

    Early Warning opens in 1953 with the Langdon family at a crossroads. Their stalwart patriarch, Walter, who with his wife, Rosanna, sustained their farm for three decades, has suddenly died, leaving their five children, now adults, looking to the future. Only one will remain in Iowa to work the land, while the others scatter to Washington, D.C., California, and everywhere in between.

    As the country moves out of post-World War II optimism through the darker landscape of the Cold War and the social and sexual revolutions of the 1960s and '70s, and then into the unprecedented wealth-for some-of the early 1980s, the Langdon children each follow a different path in a rapidly changing world. And they now have children of their own: twin boys who are best friends and vicious rivals; a girl whose rebellious spirit takes her to the notorious Peoples Temple in San Francisco; and a golden boy who drops out of college to fight in Vietnam-leaving behind a secret legacy that will send shock waves through the Langdon family into the next generation. 

    Capturing a transformative period through richly drawn characters we come to know and care deeply for, Early Warning continues Smiley's extraordinary epic trilogy, a gorgeously told saga that began with Some Luck and will span a century in America. But it also stands entirely on its own as an engrossing story of the challenges-and rewards-of family and home, even in the most turbulent of times, all while showcasing a beloved writer at the height of her considerable powers.  


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateApr 28, 2015
    ISBN9781101889060
    Unavailable
    Early Warning: A novel
    Author

    Jane Smiley

    Jane Smiley is a novelist and essayist. Her novel A Thousand Acres won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992, and her novel The All True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton won the 1999 Spur Award for Best Novel of the West. She has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1987. Her novel Horse Heaven was short-listed for the Orange Prize in 2002, and her novel, Private Life, was chosen as one of the best books of 2010 by The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post.

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    Reviews for Early Warning

    4/5

    132 ratings14 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Hard to follow in my view. I couldn't keep the characters straight. I don't think the characters were developed enough in the beginning. I won't read the rest of the trilogy.
    • 4/5
      As time marches on, the family tree expands and makes it a challenge to keep up on all of the characters. But the author has no problem weaving back and forth, in and out, of multiple lives and connections.
    • 4/5
      Like moo, it is getting hard to keep all the characters but I liked it.
    • 3/5
      Well, I didn't love this--largely because it feels that Smiley tried way too hard to make this extended family experience every.single.American.event that happened during this time span. I found the People's Temple bit to be too forced--and a little confusing, though maybe it will all be sorted out for good in #3?

      I read Some Luck 7 months ago, and definitely had some trouble picking up on who was who again. And I will certainly be reading number 3 when it comes out, though I imagine I will have the same problem again.
    • 4/5
      Early Warning by Jane Smiley is a highly recommended second book in her planned Last Hundred Years in America trilogy. This continues the story began with Some Luck and follows the years of 1953-1986. Smiley covers one year per chapter and there is a family tree included at the beginning of the book.

      Opening at the funeral of Walter in Iowa, the Langdons are now scattered across the country. Their families are growing and we are meeting the second and third generations in this multi-generational saga. You will want to start with Some Luck for a sense of continuity and in order to follow the characters in Early Warning. The series is as much a social history of the USA as it is of the Langdon family. There are a lot of characters and changes to keep track of along with all the social changes of the times.

      Smiley's continues to carefully craft her story while placing her characters firmly in the time period. She covers the decades and the historical events that happened during that time. Her writing continues to be excellent as is her ability to tell the story of various family members while keeping to her organization of by-the-year chapters.

      Early Warning does suffer a little from the second-book-in-a-trilogy syndrome. It is good, but you want the stories to continue immediately rather than waiting for the next installment.
      Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Knopf Doubleday for review purposes.
    • 5/5
      Loved this book even more than the first volume. Such interesting plot twists and great character development.
    • 4/5
      The book picks up in 1953 following "Some Luck". All the Langdon children are now mostly grown, Claire is 14 and still in high school. Lillian's marriage to Arthur Manning takes a lot of the book. Arthur works for the government and involves Frank in some espionage which allows Frank to mix with some very wealthy people. Frank is also married to a college friend but has many affairs on the side. Joe's marriage to the neighbor girl is one of convenience more than love, but they live a mostly contented life. This books sees the death of Walter, Rosanna taking driving lessons, and the turning over of the farm to Joe. (Although I expected a family feud about who owned what, that transfer was settled pretty easily in light of the high rise in farm land prices). The book is more about the children of the Langdon kids: Janet (who can't stand her father Frank), and Frank's twin sons, Richie and Michael who are also bullies and wild and marry girls from different ends of the political spectrum. Lillian's son, Tim, is killed in the Middle East. This book is not as interesting as "Some Luck" because there are just too many characters to keep track of - brothers, sister, and cousins. Although there is a family tree in the front which helps. Life is very different for these cousins from the life on the farm for Rosanna and Walter. Perhaps too different at times: the social evolution of some of the children seem to move too fast. For example, Eloise, Rosanna, is a Communist in California and Frank's association with Washington big wigs.Not sure I will read the third book - right now just kind of tired of the Langdon family.
    • 4/5
      Family story & myriad of characters did keep one's interest. Good read, but not as good as Thousand Acres which was more emotional. I was glad she included a family tree in the front...I was constantly referring back to it!...
    • 4/5
      This is the 2nd book in Jane Smiley's planned trilogy about the Langdon family. It starts in 1920 and will go through the present. It is told one year at a time and is a sprawling family saga. Early Warning covers the years 1953 through 1986. This is not a plot driven story for those looking for that but an in depth character study of lots of characters. The chart in the beginning of the book helps you keep track of the characters. It is a great way to see history and key events of the 20th century through the lives of this family. Smiley has a fairly straight forward style of writing but her ability to go in and out of different characters is excellent. For some people there may be too many characters to keep track of but I found this to be one of the best parts. I look forward to the last book. If you have never read Smiley, then this trilogy is a good start but "Moo" is another great book by her.
    • 5/5
      This is the second book in Jane Smiley's trilogy about the Langdon family. Each chapter covers a year in their lives, spanning in this book from 1953 to 1986. As the children of Walter and Rosanna Langdon grow up and leave the family farm in Iowa, the book becomes more sprawling, chronicling lives that couldn't be more different, but that are still linked by their family ties. Despite the number of lives pulling the story forward, Smiley manages to keep them all in check, weaving in and out from year to year. As with the first volume, the historical events of the day provide a backdrop for the story, but it is the family's own struggles that take center stage. I enjoyed this one as much as the first, and I'm looking forward to visiting the Langdon family again soon.
    • 4/5
      It's been months and many books ago that I read the first in Jane Smiley's trilogy, Some Luck. There is a family tree at the beginning of Early Warning - thank goodness, because there are over 50 characters in four generations, and if I hadn't made a copy of the lineage links and kept it by my side through the entire novel, I would have been lost. Every year between 1953 and 1985 is a chapter. Throughout, the focus is on the impact of current events on the entire Langdon clan and especially on two married couples, Arthur and Lillian and Frank and Andy (Andrea). Arthur and Frank are brothers and Arthur is with the CIA from pre-JFK. Two of their children are also prominent - Janny, who joins the Rev Jim Jones and almost drinks the KoolAid, and Timmy, who is killed in Vietnam. Other memorable characters are twins Michael and Richie, sons of Frank and Andy, whose rivalry in all areas of their lives is both vaguely psychotic but also hilarious.And there are still some scions who are farming. Their struggle to finally pay off the farm and stay solvent during setback after setback stays in the background until the sale of acreage impacts those family members who've left the rural life far behind them. It's tough getting through the decades and the many pages, and I wish Smiley had made this a set of four (but "trilogy" does have a much better ring to it). I'm really looking forward to the third book. After I've read it, I'll gather together the whole set and reread them all in sequence. It will be a most pleasurable endeavor. Smiley still remains one of my favorite authors, for her constant insights into what our hearts are hiding.
    • 4/5
      I loved the first book of this trilogy, Some Luck, and couldn't wait to get my hands on this second one. The first book had a genealogy chart I didn't need to use. The second book frustrated me. There were so many characters introduced and re-introduced in the first few pages that I had to keep flipping back to try to figure out who each character was. I also had to refer to the genealogy chart, and it hasn't been long since I read the first book. The chart told me things about the future I didn't want to know yet, so it was a mixed blessing.I was frustrated. Very frustrated.It didn't help that some of the characters were quite unlikable. Ones who were not likable but tolerable in the first book became worse. But I persevered, and in the end, I liked the book. I grew to know the characters, and they were definitely not caricatures; all were interesting in their different ways. I especially liked the way the history of the time, especially the fear of communism and war, the psychoanalysis that was almost a fad, was integrated into the story. Ms. Smiley's writing, as always, is lovely.I'll read the third book when it is available. I loved the first, liked the second, and have great hope for the third. But, although some trilogies can be read as stand-alone novels, I strongly suggest you read the first if you want to jump into this one.
    • 4/5
      Read from March 05 to 15, 2015The Langdons ruined me for any other family saga after I finished Some Luck. I wasn't interested in reading about any other family -- luckily I was able to snag a digital review copy of this one!The same thing I said about Some Luck remains here -- if you're looking for a plot-driven thrill ride, then turn around now. This isn't the book for you. This is for someone that wants to get lost in someone else's family for a little while. We pick up right where we left the Langdon's. Their patriarch has just died and Joe (second oldest son) is running the farm. As we cover the next 30-odd years, the family continues to scatter across the country and the world keeps spinning. As the family expands, I find I'm less interested in the new family members -- I want to stick with the original siblings -- so I hope the next book doesn't leave Claire or Henry too far out of it. More than anything the next generation annoys me. I mean, the twins are awful, Debbie is a know-it-all, and Janet is a little too paranoid, but maybe they'll grow up a bit in the next one? Some of the political things mentioned were lost on me, but then there were other parts of history (parts I DO know about) that seemed to be missing or were barely touched on.However, still a good read and I can't wait to spend another 30 years with this family.
    • 3/5
      This is the second book in a planned trilogy; the first was “Some Luck”. In this book, the reader is transported to the 1950’s and carried slowly forward, using a multiplicity of characters, into the 1980’s. I listened to an audio version of the book and it was extremely hard to keep track of the characters, their parents, spouses, lovers, and children. I read that there is a family tree in the hard copy. Therefore, I recommend reading the hard copy, although the audio was produced well. Simply put, it will be less confusing if you can track the characters through their lives with a list of extended family members.When it begins, the family is at the funeral of Rosanna’s husband, Walter Langdon, and when it ends, we have witnessed several more funerals, the last of which is Lillian Langdon’s. New beginnings await the family as a young man named Charles enters their lives, unexpectedly bringing tears to the eyes of the new widower, Arthur, and confusion to his surviving siblings. Because of the numerous family members and their friends and extended families, the details sometimes become tedious and repetitive. Every societal ill is visited upon the family at one time or another, and the reader is subjected to a play by play description as the story plays out. Of course, children are born, the elderly die, relatives grow ill, sibling rivalry causes turmoil. There are clashes of philosophies as children grow older and disagree with their parent’s perspectives. All of the ordinary incidents of life, and then some, occur. Nothing is left out as the family moves through the years, travels to various locations, takes up diverse occupations and styles of life. Some members join the military, some work for the government, some sell weapons, some enter the publishing field, some farm, some entertain, and some join cults. Infidelity is common as is divorce. The mental state of some of the family members leaves a lot to be desired. There is alcoholism, lying, and infidelity as well as divorce, bank failures and bankruptcies. All of society’s ills in those three decades are manifested in one way or another. Across the pages we watch the soldiers march off to the Viet Nam War, we witness Nixon’s disgrace, the assassination of JFK, MLK and Robert Kennedy, the mass suicide in Guyana instigated by Reverend Jones who created Jonestown and the People‘s Temple. We follow Reagan’s election, Mao Tse Tung, Stalin, Patty Hearst, Jerry Brown and Angela Davis, also the workings of Un-American Committees looking for Communists. We read about itinerant workers, prostitution, socialism, funerals with their heartrending eulogies paying homage to the dead, family breakdowns, marriages torn asunder, college dropouts, tapped phones, police brutality, Kent State, cancer, and even childbirth in a bathtub. There is homophobia, homosexuality, racism, multiple births, drugs, protests, suicide, murder, domestic violence, intermarriage, religious bias, cross dressing and sex between patient and analyst, and of course, there are varied political points of view. Have I missed anything? Don’t worry, it will surely appear between the pages of the book. Just think, all of this happened in just three decades! What awaits us in the final installment of the book which will take us to the present day? One can only imagine.