Jane Smiley

Studio 360

Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, sets her book Ten Days in the Hills in a fancy home high above Los Angeles. Sex, Hollywood, and soap opera-like personal drama give the novel a frenzied energy. And Smiley tells Kurt Andersen why she gave the book the tense backdrop of March 2003, the earliest days of the war in Iraq.

Sign up for our daily newsletter

Sign up for The Top of the World, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning.