In the aftermath of the 2003 Academy Awards, Max and Elena- he's an Oscar-winning writer/director-open their Holywood Hills home to a group of friends and neighbors, industy insiders and hangers-on, eager to escape the outside world and dissect the latest news, gossip, and secrets of the business. Over the next ten days, old lovers collide, new relationships form, and sparks fly, all with Smiley's signature sparkling wit and characterization.

With its breathtaking passion and sexy irreverence, Ten Days in the Hills is a glowing addition to the work of one of our most beloved novelists.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Monday, March 24, 2003

Max was still sleeping, neatly, as always, his head framed by the sunny white of his rectangular pillow, his eyelids smooth over the orbs of his eyes, his lips pale and soft, his bare shoulders square on the bed. While Elena was gazing at him, he sighed. Sometime in the night, he had turned back the white comforter; its fold crossed him diagonally between the hip and the knee. The morning sunlight burnished his hands (right on top of left), and sparkled through his silvery chest hair. His cock lay to one side, nonchalant. Elena smoothed the very tips of his chest hair with her hand so that she could just feel it tickling her palm, and then circled his testicles with her index finger. She was sleepy herself, probably from dreaming of the Oscars. What she could remember were more like recurring images of the bright stage as she had seen it from their seats, smiling figures walking around on it, turning this way and that, breasting the audience suddenly as if jumping into surf--not unhappy images, but not restful. The bright figures had stayed with her all night, sometimes actually looking frightened, or turning toward her so that she had to remind herself in her dream that they were happy, well fed, successful.

She sat up quietly, so as not to disturb him. She saw that all of their clothes--his tux and her vintage gold silk-velvet flapper dress--were draped neatly over the backs of a couple of chairs. Her silver sandals and her silver mesh evening bag lay on the windowsill where she had set them when she walked in the bedroom door. He had taken her to the Oscars and then to the Governor's Ball, because she, of course, had never been, though he himself had an invitation every year--his movie Grace had won Best Screenplay in the 1970s (and in fact was listed on three "hundred best films of the twentieth century" lists that she had looked up on the Internet: seventy-seventh on one, eighty-third on another, and eighty-fifth best on the third). At fifty-eight, Max had a certain sort of fame in Hollywood: most people had heard of him, but lots of younger ones assumed he was dead.

Elena, who wrote self-improvement guides (she was currently working on Here's How: To Do EVERYTHING Correctly!, chapter four, "Eating and Drinking"), had also managed to earn herself a house, but it was a bungalow in the flats of Beverly Hills, not a mansion that cascaded down a mountainside in Pacific Palisades, looked across Will Rogers Memorial Park at the Getty Museum, and had five bedrooms, a guesthouse, and a swimming pool down the mountainside (three flights of stairs) that caught the morning sun. There were two gardens on other levels--the herb garden and flower garden, one level down from the kitchen, and the Japanese garden, twenty feet below the swimming pool, which was utterly cool and silent, as far away from Los Angeles as the island of Honshu.

Elena put her feet on the floor and thought of the war. The war had begun on Thursday. As soon as she thought directly of the war, which had been until this moment of her day a presence but not an object, her fragmented, Oscar-colored mood jelled into a general feeling of shame and fear. The fact was, the war was going forward no matter what, no matter how threatening and dangerous it was, no matter how many people were certain to die, no matter how many people protested and complained, no matter what a bad bet it looked like. Other people could understand the war and explain it--there was, indeed, something reasonable about the war that other people seemed able to comprehend--but for Elena the war was entirely counterintuitive. She supposed it came down to that very word--"war," a...

 

 

"[Ten Days in the Hills is full of] merriment, movies and mating, and, in tone, is akin to [Smiley's] lively and humorous Moo. But careful readers might notice, at times, a touch of sadness beneath the mirthful atmosphere. . . . Smiley's rich prose manages to turn a simple kiss into something wondrously poetic. . . [Her] artistic facility with prose and creating scenes is evident. . . . [The] stories and conversations are as colorful as [the characters'] backgrounds. . . . Through flashbacks and dinner party stories and revelations, Smiley peels back the layers that have been buffering the relationships of all gathered during [the] 10 days [over which the novel takes place]. . . . A sharp-edged comedy of manners."

 

"A talky, bawdy book that says a lot about Hollywood and even more about the humanness of the 21st century American . . . Smiley has taken a step toward rejecting the traditional novel's story arc and instead moved toward a form that is both old and new. It's all about the story . . . Ultimately, her message here is one of art and its ability to free the artist. Forget the idiots in Washington: Get naked; make art; tell stories. Could there by any saner advice for the age we dwell in?"

 

"Ten Days in the Hills is a novel about intercourse. Talk and sex. All kinds of sex. But mostly talk . . . [The characters] talk a lot about the Iraq war. They also ricochet off a vast number of other topics . . . The topic that animates the group most, though, aside from sex, is movies . . . Sprinkled throughout the 10 days are some wonderful stories. Deft characterizations abound. Lovely apercus proliferate . . . [Turn] the volume off and enjoy this book--which is so concerned with film--as a silent movie. The actions will speak louder than words. Especially actions amorous."

 

"A spicy, steamy sexalicious slice of life."

 

"[The characters in Ten Days in the Hills are] a talky, highly sexed, often contentious bunch, and Smiley proves herself their skilled ventriloquist. As her characters struggle with what plagues them--how to hold on to fame and love; what to eat--her own sly humor, and humanity, emerge. Smiley avoids taking potshots at her indulged and indulgent cast. She even manages to show us they're worth caring for."

 

"[The characters in Ten Days in the Hills] tell stories in order to ward off the decline of western democracy. And do these people know how to talk. They talk like people under siege. Every bit of it seduces the reader. Just as she takes us inside movies, Smiley takes us inside sex. No writer has ever been more eloquent about [it] either. It's the opposite of pornography, when you get right down to it: not visual, but tactile. At the same time, Ten Days turns out to be one of the most political novels ever written by an American author. You would think that by now Hollywood would be worn out as a subject of satire. Smiley, however, brings something fresh to her brand of parody: characters who feel real."

 

"The latest from Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres, follows the exploits of one small enclave in the hills of Hollywood as they react to the Iraq War over the 10 days following the 2003 Oscars . . . Smiley writes with cinematic verve and is nearly without equal when it comes to crystallizing the vagaries of a woman's inner narrative--musing, meandering, and weaving as it does, free and insouciant even in the face of the withering male ego. [Her character] Elena's narrative is shot through with frank talk that results in a fresh, oddly romantic way of approaching sexuality--and there is as much action as there is talk."

 

"Compulsively readable . . . Smiley describes the frequent sexual encounters among the characters in explicit detail and with gusto."

 

"Dazzling . . . [It] is [Smiley's] delightfully unpredictable range [as a novelist] that makes her one of our finest contemporary writers . . . Smiley's sex scenes can be lyrical or matter-of-fact, quietly erotic or bawdy, and she can also bring a wickedly satirical edge to the subject . . . . This is not to say that Smiley's characters are unable to be surprised by love. Rather, it is a different kind of love that takes people by surprise in Ten Days in the Hills--not passionate carnal desire, but a tender love that promises to be more sustaining."

 

"When social historians look back at 2003 to discover America's psychological state as 9/11 gave way to the Iraq War, they'll learn more from Jane Smiley's decadent fantasia Ten Days in the Hills than from the period's cable news or talk radio . . . . As one character obsesses about the arguments she'd have with Condoleeza Rice if only she could, the devastating 'Why?'s that would cut through the administration party line, the disconnection and powerlessness felt by millions of Americans become incarnate in the dreamlike Hollywood hills."

 

"Ten Days in the Hills proves Smiley's greatness . . . [In the novel], Smiley shifts perspectives, dexterously exploring how self-perception varies from the perceptions of others. The characters pass the time watching and talking about movies, as well as taking about the war and having sex. Indeed, sex is rampant in Ten Days in the Hills, and Smiley presents it in myriad forms while seeming to wink at the reader . . . Smiley does a tremendous job delineating each character's idiom and point of view . . . [She] is among our most talented writers."

 

"A diverse group of attractive folks take refuge from tragedy in a hillside villa, where much merriment, bawdiness, and storytelling ensue. Boccaccio's Decameron? Yes, at least transplanted to 21st-century-America in this sly and sexy comic novel . . . . During an eventful week and a half, the [characters'] political tensions, family arguments, anecdotes, gossip, and lovemaking make up a satirical frolic reminiscent of the Pulitzer Prize--winning author's Moo, though here with more emphasis on Eros than academe."

 

Jane Smiley is the author of more than ten novels, as well as four works of nonfiction. She is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, and in 2001 was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She received the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature in 2006. Ms. Smiley lives in Northern California.

From the Hardcover...