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The significance of both idea and form in this case is that they struck Boccaccio in 1352. In The Decameron ten wealthy Florentines insulate themselves from the Black Death in a house outside the city for 14 days. They feast, dance and tell stories in an attempt to distract themselves from the appalling ravages of the plague which are taking place so near to hand.
Smiley’s group of wealthy Hollywood types (family and close friends) are cocooned in a perfect glass house in the hills above Los Angeles. They eat healthily, drink in moderation, have sex (quite a lot, actually) and discuss movies. These characters also have been brought together by a collective fear of the outside world. The book begins four days after the first American bombs were dropped on Baghdad — the ‘Ten Days’ in question are 24 March to 2 April 2003.
The war is the cause of the book. The reason the protagonists have decided to huddle together is the war. They fear something bad, something unnameable, coming over the horizon. But of course it’s not: what is the war to these people beyond a topic of conversation? It is a threat to their peace of mind; hardly the same as having the Black Death loiter on the doorstep. These characters are too self-absorbed to be affecting, and their concerns are too easily contained.
Jane Smiley reworked King Lear to great effect, winning a Pulitzer Prize for A Thousand Acres in 1992. Ten Days in the Hills is an easy read, but not such an accomplished book by any means. Smiley has adopted the form of The Decameron for her own ‘craft interest’ but not for the reader’s. Ten Days in the Hills feels like the result of an idle query — ‘Can it be done?’ — or like an exercise in creative writing, but not at all like the expression of a significant idea.
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