La mejor voluntad

Bob Miller has created the paradise he always dreamed of: a farm high in a valley, three miles from the nearest town, where he and his wife Liz live and raise their seven-year-old son, Tommy, growing their own food, spinning and weaving his clothes, making his own furniture. He built the house they live in himself, no phone or television, no car, no more everyday connection to the outside world than Tommy's daily trips to school. They live there, Bob thinks, and they will live there forever. Bob and Liz take pride in the self-sufficient lifestyle they have chosen, but if Bob is truly proud of anything, it is of Tommy, that boy who is enthusiastic, responsive, obedient and willing to be guided by his father. That is why he would never have imagined that one day his son would be able to grab two of a classmate's wrists and destroy them. However, that day he arrives and Bob gets a chill. Something is wrong, really wrong, and he hasn't seen it coming. In The Best Will, a sudden outburst of violence is the trigger that will remove the foundations of the apparent family Eden of the Millers. In a narrative that inexorably advances to a shocking ending, Jane Smiley, with her distinctive talent for portraying family relationships, immerses herself in the fears and hopes we place in our children, and once again highlights the ways in which, Inadvertently, we boycott our own dreams, even when we act with the best of intentions.