The best handjob in literature...

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9817.Ten_Days_in_the_Hills">Ten Days in the Hills by http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1339.Jane_Smiley">Jane Smiley
My rating: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/248716399">3 of 5 stars

Copies of this novel sold out at the Melbourne Writers Festival after a session with Jane Smiley in conversation with David Francis. He described this novel as having the best headjob (or was it hand job) in literature. As it turns out, I think it was hand job. There is a little sex in this large novel - generous easy sex between a range of consenting adults. The opening is lovely - two of the main characters in bed musing on whether they should make a film about being in bed together along the lines of My Dinner with Andre. I felt lulled into something promising in terms of a range of interesting conflicts, some stuff about relationships and a real go at unpacking American reactions to their country's foreign policy.

The story is set against the backdrop of the beginning of the second Gulf War, although the characters are in Hollywood rather than Baghdad. The war is a springboard for debate along with the shifting values and ambitions of people who occupy the large house temporarily (for part of the ten days). Smiley says that she was inspired to write the book by The Decameron, which I have not read. It is described in A O Scotts review of Ten Days in The Hills: "In that book, 10 privileged Florentines — seven women and three men — took refuge from their plague-ravaged city in the accursed year 1348 and passed the time telling stories, a hundred in all." This review, titled 'Kiss Kiss, Talk, Talk' accurately captures the ways in which this large novel runs out of steam - I wanted it to be so much better than it is.

The dimunition of conflict over the course of the novel is in stark contrast to the faint news of the Iraq War that filters occasionally into the lives of these characters, reminding us of how privileged, middle class and languid they (we) are. Ultimately, not the most interesting thing to read about.

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