Good Faith

Jane Smiley

Joey Stratford is a laidback real-estate agent in an old-fashioned town in middle America. His boss, Gordon Baldwin, runs the business on a nod and a wink in a cheerfully shambolic way, but it works. But this is the 1980s, the era of Loadsamoney and Gordon Gekko: enter Marcus Burns, and things will never be the same again. I enjoyed extended family life with the Baldwins, but even more I enjoyed the detailed private viewings of house interiors.

Extract

In the kitchen, there were red tile accents. In the dining room, there were heavy dark ceiling beams. I looked out the breakfast-room window. To the south, there was a nice garden, though a little overgrown. I was charmed, I admit I was; it was just the sort of house heirs would squabble over. Unfortunately, it was not the sort of house I could imagine people living in.

Parallels