Review: Smiley visits Wild West in ‘A Dangerous Business’

“A Dangerous Business” by Jane Smiley After a fall publishing season filled with Big Books by John Irving, Cormac McCarthy and Barbara Kingsolver, to name just a few, it’s refreshing to read this taut tale from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley. Parks, the madame who runs Eliza’s establishment, utters the quote on the book’s preface page, telling Eliza: “Between you and me, being a woman is a dangerous business, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” Indeed, as the plot unfolds, it’s remarkable what people got away with in the 1850s. “There was plenty to be learned in California,” writes Smiley, “and Eliza was ready to learn all sorts of things — the names of birds, the adventures of the people she saw around her and of her customers… But one thing she had learned was how quickly death comes… What came much more rarely, and was therefore a little scarier, was true friendship, of the sort she had with Jean.” At 208 pages, the novel’s pace is quick. If anything like “A Dangerous Business,” they’d be fine stories indeed.