Jetta Carleton opened her 1962 novel &ldquo;The Moonflower Vine&rdquo; by describing a family farm in western Missouri, below the river.</p><p>It&rsquo;s a land, she wrote, &ldquo;cut by creeks, where high pastures rise out of wooded valleys to catch the sunlight and fall away over limestone bluffs. It is a pretty country. It does not demand your admiration, as some regions do, but seems glad for it all the same.&rdquo;</p><p>Readers from this part of the Midwest will recognize that place &mdash; it&rsquo;s all around us &mdash; and appreciate the author&rsquo;s attachment to it.</p><p>But few will recognize the name Jetta Carleton or her book, which spent three months on the New York Times best-seller list, drew laudatory reviews and was a selection of the Literary Guild and Readers Digest Condensed Books.</p><p>Predicted to be a classic, the novel drifted into obscurity, even here where the semiautobiographical story is set.</p><p>The farm in the novel is much like the one owned by Carleton&rsquo;s family southeast of Kansas City, outside of Calhoun, Mo., said her great-niece, Susan Beasley. The story mentions towns such as Cole Camp and Osceola. Scenes in Kansas City refer to the Liberty Memorial, Petticoat Lane and the Muehlebach Hotel.</p><p>Over the years, Carleton&rsquo;s book, the current selection of the FYI Book Club, kept a small, devoted following, aided by paperback reprintings.</p><p>But renewed interest began to swell in 2005, when Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley included &ldquo;The Moonflower Vine&rdquo; in &ldquo;Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel.&rdquo;</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">In the spotlight again</span></strong></p><p>Among the 100 works Smiley wrote about in her book, &ldquo;Moonflower&rdquo; was one of the two most obscure contemporary titles, she said.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a totally fascinating novel,&rdquo; Smiley said. &ldquo;And there are many layers to it. The surface layer is clearly the lyricism of the evocation of rural Missouri and this timeless spot. And the symbol of that is the nightly blooming of the moonflowers (akin to morning glories).</p><p>&ldquo;Underneath the lyricism is what could be quite a set of scandalous relationships. It&rsquo;s a very Sinclair Lewis type of book. But she tells it in such an evenhanded way, and in such an accepting way, it goes under the radar.&rdquo;</p><p>Smiley happened upon the book decades ago. A paperback edition caught her attention because it carried a blurb by renowned editor Robert Gottlieb, who edited literary greats including Joseph Heller and Doris Lessing.</p><p>Gottlieb wrote: &ldquo;Of the hundreds upon hundreds of novels I&rsquo;ve edited, this is literally the only one I&rsquo;ve reread several times since its publication. And every time I&rsquo;ve read it, I&rsquo;ve been moved by it again &mdash; by the people, by their lives, by the truth and clarity and generosity in the writing and feeling.&rdquo;</p><p>In turn, Smiley&rsquo;s inclusion of the book in &ldquo;Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel&rdquo; caught the attention of Bruce Bigelow, editor of Neglectedbooks.com. The Web site highlights books &ldquo;neglected, overlooked, forgotten or stranded by changing tides in critical or popular taste.&rdquo;</p><p>Bigelow reviewed and recommended the novel in 2006, and when news came that Harper Perennial would reissue it in 2009, the Web site noted that &ldquo;The Moonflower Vine&rdquo; had &ldquo;easily generated more responses from readers of this site than all other featured books combined.&rdquo; The new edition carries a foreword written by Smiley.</p><p><strong><span class="subhead">Autobiographical?</span></strong></p><p>What would Carleton think of the hubbub?