Jane Smiley. Photograph: Jack Canning
In this month's Guardian book club, Jane Smiley speaks to John Mullan about Ten Days in the Hills, her LA-based novel inspired by Boccaccio's The Decameron.
Smiley explains why she modelled her modern day story on a 14th century classic, why she set it against the backdrop of the early months of the Iraq war, and why it features so much graphic sex. She also details how her connections with Hollywood have been fictionalised, and which of her own characteristics and political views survive in the novel's protagonists.
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