New Fiction on the New York Times Best Sellers List (3/4/07)
by Mazie
In Ten Days in the Hills, Jane Smiley consciously set out to remake Boccaccio's Decameron and write a funny sexual satire of our times. Instead of the plague her ten characters are hiding out in the hills above Hollywood from the war in Iraq.
The reviews have been mixed. Some critics and readers are amused and others are decidely not. Beguiling discussions or boring blather. Rollicking escapades or sleazy sex. But all agree there is not much plot.
In either case, Smiley has not scaled the literary heights as she did with her reworking of King Lear in her Pulitzer Prize-winning A Thousand Acres.
You can check out the rest of the List and the three other new additions ( Sisters by Danielle Steel, The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian and Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill) online.
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