SOURCE: “Pigging Out with the Professors,” in Guardian, May 19, 1995, p. 7.

In the following review, Messud lauds the variety and wit of Smiley's Moo.

In spite of its absurdities, or perhaps because of them, ours is an age which accords the greatest literary respect to the most sober stories. With rare exceptions—Confessions of Zeno and A House for Mr Biswas come to mind—this century's most acclaimed fiction does not occasion much laughter.

So it is a cause for celebration that Jane Smiley has turned her talents to comedy. Smiley is, incontestably, a serious writer. From her first novel, Barn Blind, she has beautifully and precisely catalogued the bitter intimacy of human relationships, the universality of misunderstanding and grief. Her Pulitzer prize-winning triumph, A Thousand Acres; adapted the greatest tragic narrative, reworking Lear in the sprawling, workaday landscape of the American prairie and granting, to the humble Cook...