Exploring Jane Smiley’s St. Louis in Lucky

By Jessica Rogen on Wed, May 22, 2024 at 6:00 am

St. Louis-born author Jane Smiley has won a Pulitzer and published more than 25 books, but she has never set a book in her hometown — until now. Lucky, which dropped last month, is an alternative history of Smiley’s life: What if, when attending John Burroughs high school, she fell in love with music and songwriting instead of books and writing?

The story follows Jodie Rattler from her start growing up on Skinker Boulevard to her heights as a famous folk musician back to her hometown to care for her aging mother. Along the way, it traces both Smiley’s favorite memories of St. Louis places and those that belong to Jodie.

Making note of the local spots in the text is one of the joys of reading this as a St. Louisan. We’ve pulled out a few of our favorite mentions here, but there are many, many more.

For an in-depth look at the novel and to hear from Smiley herself, read this week's cover story, "Just Her Luck.”

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Zachary Linhares

John Burroughs School
It’s at the John Burroughs School that Jodie first finds her path toward being a musician. But she isn’t so sure about it at first, when a friend tells her about the school’s reputation. “I can’t say that what she said about John Burroughs and the smart kids made me happy. I assumed that I wouldn’t fit in, and so I didn’t look forward to it.”

Jane Smiley's childhood house in Webster Groves

GOOGLE MAPS

Jane Smiley’s house
Jane Smiley grew up in Webster Groves. She describes a charmed childhood spent roaming the streets of the various neighborhoods near her own. The good fortune she felt at her beginnings and how her career progressed inspired her to pen Jodie’s tale of luck.

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U.S. Geologic Survey

Cahokia Downs
Both Jodie’s story and the book begin at Cahokia Downs, where Jodie’s Uncle Drew has her circle numbers on a card that turn into big winnings — his last $6 becomes $5,986, and he gives her a roll of $2 bills that becomes a talisman of her luck. Jodie isn’t a horse girl, but Smiley is, and she reminisced to the RFT about the track, pony rides and riding her horse.

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Zachary Linhares

Skinker Boulevard
Jodie grows up in “a golden brick house on Skinker, across from the park.”

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VIA FLICKR/PAUL SABLEMAN

Tornados
After a narrow miss with a tornado, Jodie decides her luck comes from the roll of $2 bills and vows never to spend it. As an adult, she develops a much more Midwestern attitude toward twisters: “Now that I was living in St. Louis and was getting old, I was no longer terribly impressed by tornadoes, though I did pay attention to the one in the spring of 2011, because it was huge and stayed on the ground awhile, though not as long as I thought it had (sweeping through Maryland Heights, up to the airport, and back around to New Melle).”

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RFT FILE PHOTO

The Muny
Jodie’s mom thought she’d make it on Broadway but she only gets “bit parts.” She returns home to St. Louis and gets a job at the Muny “first onstage, then in the office, and later for Kiel Auditorium. She got to the point where she didn’t envy the actresses and the musicians, but it took a long time.”

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Zachary Linhares

Forest Park
Forest Parks gets many mentions in Lucky. Jodie walks through the verdant space, singing Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s “Summertime” long before she knows she’ll grow up to be a singer herself.

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The River Des Peres flows through a concrete channel in University City.

THEO WELLING

River des Peres
One of the first songs Jodie writes should instantly resonate with St. Louis readers. It’s about “an accident I heard had happened in St. Louis,” Jodie recalls in the book, “a car going off the bridge over the River des Peres, which may have once been a river but was now a sewer. My challenge was to make sense of the story while sticking in a bunch of odd St. Louis street names — Skinker, of course, DeBaliviere, Bompart, Chouteau, Vandeventer. The chorus was about Big Bend. The song made me cry, but I never sang it to anyone but myself.”

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Zachary Linhares

St. Louis streets
Smiley loves the odd names of St. Louis streets, and readers can spot them throughout Lucky. “ I had to put her in that house on Skinker, and I had to refer to a few other places that are kind of weird. I couldn't fit them all in,” Smiley tells us.

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John Burroughs yearbook

The gawky girl
Jodie isn’t the only Smiley doppelganger in Lucky. There’s also the “gawky girl,” a classmate of Jodie’s who wins the Pulitzer Prize for a novel that takes notes from King Lear. Jodie runs into the gawky girl throughout the book and Smiley clearly has fun attributing aspects of her own high school self to the unnamed character.

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Left Bank Books (399 North Euclid Avenue)

JOSHUA PHELPS

Left Bank Books
Jodie picks up one of the gawky girl’s novels at Left Bank Books and is surprised at her career path. Like Jodie, you can pick up a copy of one of the gawky girl’s books at the Central West End store. We suggest starting with Lucky, naturally. Though you can’t go wrong with the Pulitzer-winning A Thousand Acres, modeled on, yes, King Lear.

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Braden McMakin

The Fox and Hounds at the Cheshire Inn
Jodie and the Gawky Girl finally speak after their 50th high school reunion at the Fox and Hounds bar. It’s a conversation that changes the trajectory of the book.

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Steve Truesdell

Josie meets Chuck Berry in person at a music festival in California. She relates in the novel, “My favorite parts were getting to walk up to Chuck Berry and say, “I’m from St. Louis, too. Skinker!” and having him reply, “Cards, baby!”

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Madrina will open in the building that held CJ Muggs.

Jessica Rogen

Mugg’s and Schneithorst’s
Jodie returns to St. Louis to take care of her grandparents and her mother. They start taking her grandmother out to lunch. She enjoys the German restaurant Schneithorst’s (since razed) but one of her favorite’s is Mugg’s, now the home of Madrina’s in downtown Webster.

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ZACHARY LINHARES

Famous-Barr
Like any good St. Louisan, Jodie shops at Famous-Barr, where she runs into an old friend who is surprised to see her. “I said, ‘But if you want to stay famous, you have to shop at Famous-Barr twice a year, no matter where you live. It’s the law.’”

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VIA FLICKR/PAUL SABLEMAN

Shaw Park
After shopping, Jodie and her friend “walked down Forsyth to Shaw Park.”

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A dog looks over an overlook at Babler Memorial State Park.

Courtesy Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial State Park

Babler State Park
Jodie’s Uncle Drew loves the parks surrounding St. Louis, and Babler is his favorite. The downside is having to check for ticks afterward. “Uncle Drew said that was the price for living in such a fertile and wooded area — would we rather be in Phoenix?”

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The Chase Club's renovations have given it a cool palette of striking blue and green tones.

SARAH FENSKE

Chase Park Plaza
Jodie’s father is largely absent in the book, but when he once visits St. Louis, he meets Jodie and her mom at the Chase.

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Kavahn Mansouri

Bellefontaine Cemetery
Lucky spans much of Jodie’s life and death is a part of that life. Her mom’s favorite uncle is buried in St. Louis’ prettiest cemetery.

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VIA FLICKR/PAUL SABLEMAN

Missouri River
Jodie gets her start as a fill-in backup singer. Coming home is a seminal moment for her. Jodie recalls, “It was on the bus, as we were crossing the Missouri River not far from Overton, that the idea of having a singing career seemed to gel in my brain. The downside might be the traveling and the routine, but that sense of looking at the audience, feeling the song blossom in your brain, and then opening your mouth and having it come out … ”

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Exploring Jane Smiley’s St. Louis in Lucky

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