SOURCE: “Fact or Fiction,” in Spectator, Vol. 281, October 24, 1998, p. 49.

In the following review, Grant praises Smiley's creation of the character of Lidie Newton in The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton, but complains that the historical details get in the way of the story.

Comparisons, I know, are odious. However, when a book never quite comes into its own, comparisons will, despite the best intentions, keep surfacing. According to the publisher's blurb, Lidie Newton, the heroine of Jane Smiley's latest book, The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton is on a par with Huck Finn or Isabel Archer in the roll of Great American Characters. Perhaps she might have been if the author had concentrated more on Lidie herself and less on a meticulously chronicled history of her time. As it is, the history gets in the way of the story. Real people, like General Lane...