Halfway between a scenery along Woody Allen with an acid background David Foster Wallace, we found a Douglas Kennedy that both immerses us in its particular romanticism (which ends up delving into an existentialism between domestic and circumstantial of the time and place of its story) and then triggers us to that more satirical and parodic side about uses and customs and crazy tendencies of the mediocrity and normality. That was what we sometimes tend to do with centripetal force, only to end up wishing to escape in a stroke of centrifugal luck.
Paradoxes and contradictions aside, Kennedy is above all a meticulous narrator in outlining his characters. So that the brushstroke observed from the middle distance leads us, as we close the focus, towards the interiorities and mechanisms that move his characters. He is essential empathy for every reader who observes the scene and ends up knowing the motives of each character. A final game of mirrors where the reflection stuns and fascinates us in equal measure.
It is easy to recognize oneself in that transit of each protagonist uploaded to the tables of life. Where a kind of soliloquies are recited waiting for easy applause. To end up leaving the scene with the feeling of having missed most of what was to be said. And that is where we find the inner dialogue to which we are invited to give a good account of everything that is never explained.
Top 3 Recommended Books by Douglas Kennedy
Isabella in the afternoon
70s, Paris. Sam, an American student recently arrived in the City of Light for a brief taste of bohemian life, meets a woman in a bookstore. Isabelle is enigmatic, beautiful, fourteen years older than Sam, highly experienced in the vicissitudes of love... and married. What begins as a chance encounter turns into a furtive, passionate, and time-constrained affair that will last for decades. An adventure that manages to avoid monotony and routine.
We will accompany Sam on a journey towards maturity. Predestined to be a prestigious lawyer, a deep desire permanently beats in him: to have Isabelle in his arms again, body and soul. But is she willing to sacrifice her well-off life for him?
Isabelle in the afternoon is a sensual and delicate novel about frustrated loves, the destiny we forge for ourselves and the way to share our true intimacy. When we least expect it, a chance encounter can transform the course of our lives.
The discreet charm of married life
United States, 60s. These are times of social movements, protests for civil rights and marches against the war; of sexual liberation, rock and hallucinogenic drugs. It seems like a dream for any young man raised in a bohemian and progressive family environment. However, Hannah yearns for a different kind of life: marrying her doctor boyfriend and raising her children in a small, quiet town.
When she finds the happiness she longed for, she finds herself thrust into a seemingly perfect marriage, but with few emotions. The frustration of her predictable and boring life leads her to commit an act of rebellion that will force her to break the law. An unexpected transgression that she will hide for decades. But one day, in the charged atmosphere of a conservative country trying to recover from the September 11 attacks, her most intimate secret comes to light.
Overnight, Hannah will be questioned and suspected. Her little world, carefully protected over the years, will begin to completely crumble and she will have to fight against the force of the past to get out of the darkness.
Looking for happiness
New York, Thanksgiving Eve 1945. The war is over and Eric Smythe's party is in full swing. All of his friends from Greenwich Village, in the bohemian heart of Manhattan, are there. Also his sister Sara, an independent and awake young woman who begins to make her way in the big city. The arrival of Jack Malone, a US Army journalist recently returned from Germany, marks the beginning of a dizzying love story.
Set in 1950s America, between dynamic postwar optimism and McCarthy's witch hunts, The Pursuit of Happyness is a family drama wrought with conflicting loyalties, moral choices, and fateful destinies. An epic and intimate story, tremendously moving.
