Smiley's Decameron

Smiley's new novel is set not in the Iowa cornfields but in contemporaryHollywood, California; still, she is in top form at adapting literaryprecedent to her quirky intent. Ten Days in the Hills borrowsthe scheme of Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, with a cast of moralbankrupts who get tossed together in a couple of posh Los Angeles locations where they will talk, eat, sleep, and copulate.

A conclusion that only the most perverse Hollywood screenwritercould imagine. Max, a 58-year-old burned-out film director, fantasizescoming out of his late-career doldrums to direct My LovemakingWith Elena, a sort of My Dinner With Andre (1981), except thatit will feature porn technique juxtaposed with high-minded conversationabout current events. The aforesaid Elena-- Max's current loverand a bestselling author of "self-improvement guides" (Here'sHow: To Do EVERYTHING Correctly!) -- has other ideas: obsessedwith the crisis in Iraq, she would like to see a film featuringJennifer Lopez as a gung-ho American soldier who, in a firefight,will have the beautiful bottom half of her body damaged beyondrecognition. The rest of the merry crew that join Max and Elenafor a 10-day vacation include Max's former wife, Zoe, a film starwhose narcissism is matched only by her daughter Isabel's eco-pedantry,and Elena's son, Simon, a witless UC–Davis undergrad who bringsto mind the screen personality of Ashton Kutcher. Although Simonseems to bear the brunt of Smiley's strongest moral condemnation,he does have a brilliant comic moment in the takedown of Zoe'spersonal coach and gigolo, Paul. The latter is a tendentious charlatan,a New Age hack who practices yoga and recommends that his variousfemale clients eat more "organ meats." Right.