Rating: 
Summary: Smiley's Answer to Huck Finn?
Review: I have read elsewhere that Jane Smiley has taken offense to Twain's description of the relationship between Huck Finn and the slave Jim. In the Lidie Newton book Smiley has Lidie risk her life to help a slave escape her master. While not burning with the abolitionist fervor of her dead husband, Lidie cannot resist helping someone who wants to be free. This book provides interesting insights to the Kansas-Missouri troubles of the 1850s as well as a fascinating exposition of the social culture of the times. My only problem with the book is its ponderous pace. While Lidie has many exciting adventures we seem to travel through them with the speed of a Conestoga wagon. That aside, this is a book that truly deserves reading.
Rating: 
Summary: A very good READ, it requires undivided attention.
Review: I have studied the subject of Bleeding Kansas just before the Civil War intensively. My people were the people in this book, both the slaveholders and the abolitionists and Jane Smiley has recreated them all with all their pimples, meanness, dullness, good hearted spite and spots. This is a living book, because it has heart, and if you can't find it in this book it is because you are too damn dull. I think it is an American classic, but you have got to study on it, it isn't an easy book. Put some time in and you will come to understand that although Lidie Newton talks a lot, she really must be measured by what she does. I have a first edition, and I tell you now that it will be worth some money some day. In my estimation it is the best of Smiley's efforts because it conveys the real smell and taste of the times.
Rating: 
Summary: But still not sure what to think...
Review: I just finished "Lidie Newton" last night and I have to say I'm still divided on whether I'd recommend this book. I guess the best way to qualify it is that I'm not sure I'd suggest it to a friend, but I'd definitely like it if my daughters read it.I make my home in Kansas City and so the historical aspect was particularly interesting to me, probably much more so than for someone who did not grow up here. Having a first-person account from a character as interesting as Lidie also made it more appealing. She's a great character -- more confused than noble, plain, funny, selfish on one hand and tender on the other, smart about some things and really ignorant on others. Jane Smiley knows how to write great characters and Lidie was a much better history lesson than any I remember getting in school. (I had to refresh my memory on the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Missouri Compromise when I read this). However, I do agree with readers who complain that the book drags in places... it does. Those slower places may reveal some interesting tidbit but what could have been said in one page seemed to go on for five. The temptation to skim was really overwhelming, especially after she leaves K.T. for Missouri. People who are looking for a satisfying ending will not get one, as the book just seems to abruptly stop with no hint of what or where Lidie's life will be made. This is what keeps it from being a "five star" book and an unqualified "must read". Because sometimes I had to MAKE myself read it. That being said, I'm glad I did. It really made me think about the beliefs and the behaviors of the people who settled here -- some, my own relatives. While most of the book is understandably pro-Kansas, anti-Missouri, Ms. Smiley does try to offer some explaination of the seemingly indefensible views of Missourians (and "true" southerners). The novel itself goes a long way in explaining the animosity that existed here between Kansans and Missourians -- a real life-or-death conflict that only remains today as the KU/MU college rivalry. Just expect that when you close the book for the last time, you'll be as exhausted as Lidie must have been at the end of her travels.
Rating:
Summary: But still not sure what to think...
Review: I just finished "Lidie Newton" last night and I have to say I'm still divided on whether I'd recommend this book. I guess the best way to qualify it is that I'm not sure I'd suggest it to a friend, but I'd definitely like it if my daughters read it. I make my home in Kansas City and so the historical aspect was particularly interesting to me, probably much more so than for someone who did not grow up here. Having a first-person account from a character as interesting as Lidie also made it more appealing. She's a great character -- more confused than noble, plain, funny, selfish on one hand and tender on the other, smart about some things and really ignorant on others. Jane Smiley knows how to write great characters and Lidie was a much better history lesson than any I remember getting in school. (I had to refresh my memory on the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Missouri Compromise when I read this). However, I do agree with readers who complain that the book drags in places... it does. Those slower places may reveal some interesting tidbit but what could have been said in one page seemed to go on for five. The temptation to skim was really overwhelming, especially after she leaves K.T. for Missouri. People who are looking for a satisfying ending will not get one, as the book just seems to abruptly stop with no hint of what or where Lidie's life will be made. This is what keeps it from being a "five star" book and an unqualified "must read". Because sometimes I had to MAKE myself read it. That being said, I'm glad I did. It really made me think about the beliefs and the behaviors of the people who settled here -- some, my own relatives. While most of the book is understandably pro-Kansas, anti-Missouri, Ms. Smiley does try to offer some explaination of the seemingly indefensible views of Missourians (and "true" southerners). The novel itself goes a long way in explaining the animosity that existed here between Kansans and Missourians -- a real life-or-death conflict that only remains today as the KU/MU college rivalry. Just expect that when you close the book for the last time, you'll be as exhausted as Lidie must have been at the end of her travels.
Rating:
Summary: But still not sure what to think...
Review: I just finished "Lidie Newton" last night and I have to say I'm still divided on whether I'd recommend this book. I guess the best way to qualify it is that I'm not sure I'd suggest it to a friend, but I'd definitely like it if my daughters read it. I make my home in Kansas City and so the historical aspect was particularly interesting to me, probably much more so than for someone who did not grow up here. Having a first-person account from a character as interesting as Lidie also made it more appealing. She's a great character -- more confused than noble, plain, funny, selfish on one hand and tender on the other, smart about some things and really ignorant on others. Jane Smiley knows how to write great characters and Lidie was a much better history lesson than any I remember getting in school. (I had to refresh my memory on the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Missouri Compromise when I read this). However, I do agree with readers who complain that the book drags in places... it does. Those slower places may reveal some interesting tidbit but what could have been said in one page seemed to go on for five. The temptation to skim was really overwhelming, especially after she leaves K.T. for Missouri. People who are looking for a satisfying ending will not get one, as the book just seems to abruptly stop with no hint of what or where Lidie's life will be made. This is what keeps it from being a "five star" book and an unqualified "must read". Because sometimes I had to MAKE myself read it. That being said, I'm glad I did. It really made me think about the beliefs and the behaviors of the people who settled here -- some, my own relatives. While most of the book is understandably pro-Kansas, anti-Missouri, Ms. Smiley does try to offer some explaination of the seemingly indefensible views of Missourians (and "true" southerners). The novel itself goes a long way in explaining the animosity that existed here between Kansans and Missourians -- a real life-or-death conflict that only remains today as the KU/MU college rivalry. Just expect that when you close the book for the last time, you'll be as exhausted as Lidie must have been at the end of her travels.
Rating:
Summary: Try the Unabridged Tape
Review: I listened to the excellantly narrated unabridged version of this novel, and think it might be better than reading it. The dense political commentary is clearly and vividly read and may actually be more interesting than in text form. While I, too, got ansy to get back to the story of Liddie and Thomas, I was also gratified to receive an education on the tangled history of Kansas/Missouri relations. I had no idea that this was part of our country's history. Liddie's narrative was so genuine (and obviously well-researched)that I often forgot it was fiction. The details of homesteading, steamboat travel, and pioneer life are outstanding. The only reason for not awarding 5 stars is the proponderence of political detail, which was a bit of overkill. Still, historical fiction readers will not want to miss this one.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable!! A tragically inspirational story.
Review: I need more!! I want to know the rest of the story. I am hooked, Lidie Harkness Newton is an inspiration. I hope there will be another chapter to this saga.
Rating:
Summary: A Pleasant Variation in Historical Fiction
Review: I read a lot of historical fiction, and am by training an historian, so I feel qualified to give this book a solid thumbs-up review. Smiley has chosen an historical period and locale not frequently visited by modern novelists. Her exploration of the antebellum Kansas frontier reveals many little-known events and interesting historical figures. I found it admirable that Smiley allowed the central character, Liddie Newton, to be shaped and changed by the events of her life. Many authors create a rock-like character and bounce events off of them, but Liddie is very realistically painted. Knowing something of history and of the complexities of public opinion in the pre-war period will help readers enjoy this book more, but I think anyone who likes a good story told gently will appreciate Liddie Newton.
Rating:
Summary: A Pleasant Variation in Historical Fiction
Review: I read a lot of historical fiction, and am by training an historian, so I feel qualified to give this book a solid thumbs-up review. Smiley has chosen an historical period and locale not frequently visited by modern novelists. Her exploration of the antebellum Kansas frontier reveals many little-known events and interesting historical figures. I found it admirable that Smiley allowed the central character, Liddie Newton, to be shaped and changed by the events of her life. Many authors create a rock-like character and bounce events off of them, but Liddie is very realistically painted. Knowing something of history and of the complexities of public opinion in the pre-war period will help readers enjoy this book more, but I think anyone who likes a good story told gently will appreciate Liddie Newton.
Rating:
Summary: Lidie Who?
Review: I read this book after seeing it listed as a book people were buying in addition to "On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon," by Kaye Gibbons. "Lidie" can't hold a candle to "Afternoon" for gloriously written characters. Perhaps the historical accuracy is there, but if a book doesn't leave me with the characters' voices in my head, then for me it has failed. Throughout the entire book I had no real feeling for Lidie's mind or even for her physical being. I could not picture this woman in my head, nor could I put a face on Thomas, her husband. The nephew Frank I could visualize, but like so many others who have written here, he reminded me somewhat of a Huck Finn. The problem is, was Huck Finn a realistic character? There must have been something about this book that kept me reading it, since I usually won't waste my time with one I don't care about. Still, the lack of interesting characters and the lack of a forwarding moving story didn't dissuade me. I held on to the dire end, and wound up about the way I expected -- disappointed. When the story finally picked up at around page 350 (!), I thought there might be some hope of the "adventures" hinted at in the book's title. There was a little adventure here, and a little one over there, but none of them seemed particularly well thought-out as a structural part of the story as a whole. I won't completely condemn "Lidie," but as a story it left me completely cold. I know that within a year I won't remember having ever read this book. Give me Kaye Gibbons any day.
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