St Louis Magazine / January 2012 / St. Louis Hometown Stories: Jane Smiley, Novelist

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St. Louis Hometown Stories: Jane Smiley, Novelist

Webster Groves

Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley grew up in Webster Groves before moving to Ladue, graduating from John Burroughs School, and going on to Vassar College. The author of more than a dozen novels—including A Thousand Acres, The Greenlanders, Duplicate Keys, and most recently Private Life—Smiley received the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature in 2006.

What do you remember about St. Louis?
On the corner of Manchester and Brentwood, there was a permanent pony ride when I was little. On the way home from my grandmother’s house, I would always lobby to stop at the pony rides. They would put you up on the pony, they would strap you in, and they would send the pony around this little maze at a trot. I thought it was the greatest thing… That was probably one of the things that made me a lifelong horsewoman.

Did you have a favorite restaurant?
Every Friday night, my mom wanted to eat at the Lotus Room, essentially the first Chinese restaurant in the suburbs. I would watch my mom eat this horrifying mixed stuff, and I would eat plain white rice. So no, I did not enjoy the famed St. Louis cuisine.

What about John Burroughs School?
I truly did have what you would call “an intellectual waking” there… You read a book every two weeks. The books were challenging… As we became adjusted to reading these great books, though, it really formed the way I saw the world.

Any other memories?
My stepfather grew up in St. Louis. He appeared at The Muny, and in the late 1920s, he was an understudy to Cary Grant, when Cary Grant was still known as Archie Leach. Everyone passes through at some point.