- Mass Market Paperback: 598 pages
- Publisher: Arrow (2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099497956
- ISBN-13: 978-0099497950
- Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11.2 x 4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,951,083 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
State Of The Union
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Praise for Douglas Kennedy's "A Special Relationship":
"As it gathered pace . . . I found my heart beating faster. I cannot remember a more compulsive book."
-"Daily Telegraph"
"Kennedy knows how to keep the pages turning."
-"The Times" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
"As it gathered pace . . . I found my heart beating faster. I cannot remember a more compulsive book."
-"Daily Telegraph"
"Kennedy knows how to keep the pages turning."
-"The Times" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Review
Praise for Douglas Kennedy's "A Special Relationship":
"As it gathered pace . . . I found my heart beating faster. I cannot remember a more compulsive book."
-"Daily Telegraph"
"Kennedy knows how to keep the pages turning."
-"The Times" --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
"As it gathered pace . . . I found my heart beating faster. I cannot remember a more compulsive book."
-"Daily Telegraph"
"Kennedy knows how to keep the pages turning."
-"The Times" --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
47 of 53 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Douglas Kennedy is a brilliant author, leaving withdrawal symptoms on finishing each of his books and 'State of the Union' is no different. There are few books I take up and read in one sitting and this is definitely one!
As with 'A Special Relationship' he writes from the female perspective, this time starting off with a much gentler pace in Part One of the book describing life for a young couple in a eight year period (1996-1973). The heroine, does not seem very 'heroine' like' initially, the ordinariness of the life she chooses to live in comparison to the changing times in the US make a riveting contrast.
It makes delightful reading to see Hannah's attempts to live a life different from her parent's, particularly her mother, but in the end she can not stop history repeating itself, while she goes about her life avoiding it. I had to stop myself and figure had Douglas Kennedy lived my life, but can only believe that we all at some level rebel against our parent's beliefs and perceived wrongdoings to find ourselves following their well worn footsteps. Hannah's relationship with her father was just as fascinating as that with her mother, and not as perfect as wanted to fool herself into believing. The Oedipus complex is in full swing here with the dawning awareness as she becomes a mother herself that life is not always black and white.
Her marriage she feels will provide a safe harbour from the complexities of her relationship with her parents, provides too safe a port, you can almost sense her need to get out, and those standing on the sidelines of her life knowing it was not the place to be. As a reader you want to shake her, make her listen to her mother's wisdom, knowing full well you did not listen to your own mother's wisdom when you were that age.
The affair that takes Hannah off the path of least resistance for a short time is well written, like a moth to a light on a dark night she is compelled to rebel. I almost felt proud she had stood up to life, knowing that there would be a price to pay.
At 12:30am I promised I would put the book down and leave Part Two for another night, 12:34am I had the light back, I just had to finish it!
Part Two brings to 2003, and it seems that the sins of the past come back to haunt Hannah. Initially it is easy to think she has got away with her affair of thirty years earlier, but there is just enough penance in being married to her staid and steady husband for us to feel that she has more than paid. But life is never that fair and is starts to fall apart. The tempo speeds up with the compulsive style that Douglas Kennedy whips up book after book.
Kennedy has us on his rollercoaster of complex and often polar emotions bring us closer to Hannah but further away from her husband. Different characters stand either side of this emotional like/dislike dividing line. That is apart from her daughter Lizzie. It is interesting to feel that Hannah has a better relationship with her daughter, than she did with her own mother. Despite this Lizzie's behaviour and subsequent disappearance create a lot of the suspense. The affair comes to light after the disappearance, is not just played out in private but in full view of the American public. The furore it creates and Hannah's handling of the situation brings sympathy and fear. The downfall of Hannah's marriage was very well crafted. I felt a sense of triumph as Hannah recovered slowly but gracefully from the onslaught, and I was overjoyed she appeared to came out a better and stronger person.
I guess it is another wait of two years before we have another book, having read all Kennedy's works of fiction and desperate for the next fix I had to turn to non-fiction, and even in these books he crafts a great human story!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was my first Douglas Kennedy and I found it very easy to read from a feminine perspective of continuous guilt and self-imposed responsibility for everyone else's faults.
Ok, in this case the guilt is justified - a 48 hour fling and the subsequent guilt which convinces Hannah that she is staying with her husband as atonement. As the years go by their relationship is constantly underated as the 'price' she paid, and never seen clearly for what it was.
Then the horrible coincidence of a missing daughter and a publicity-seeking author combine to expose all her secrets.
Who among us can truely say they have no little misdemeanour to hide from the tabloid press - something that could be twisted and interpreted negatively? Not me!
An interesting storyline which tunrs a gentle light on our hungry media for whom truth and fairness are not the only dishes on the menu.
Definiteley summer reading - a page-turner with touching insight into the female psyche - but some underdeveloped characters and dead ends.
Ok, in this case the guilt is justified - a 48 hour fling and the subsequent guilt which convinces Hannah that she is staying with her husband as atonement. As the years go by their relationship is constantly underated as the 'price' she paid, and never seen clearly for what it was.
Then the horrible coincidence of a missing daughter and a publicity-seeking author combine to expose all her secrets.
Who among us can truely say they have no little misdemeanour to hide from the tabloid press - something that could be twisted and interpreted negatively? Not me!
An interesting storyline which tunrs a gentle light on our hungry media for whom truth and fairness are not the only dishes on the menu.
Definiteley summer reading - a page-turner with touching insight into the female psyche - but some underdeveloped characters and dead ends.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
'The best book I have read since the last book I read' sounds like faint praise until you take into account the last book I read was also by Kennedy, and they are the two best best books I read during 2007. (Out of three - Ha! No, I jest...) Fantastic characters and a plot that feels pacy without actually being so, thanks to the skill of the writer in making every paragraph interesting. I nearly didn't buy this because, on reading the back cover, it sounds like a 'woman's book' (no offence, ladies) and it sat in my house for nearly a year before I gave it a go. Excellent stuff. The best, in fact since Zoe Heller's 'Notes on a Scandal' and possibly even better than that.
Gotta love the review of the woman from Vermont who picks holes in Kennedy's geographical accuracy and suggests we'd all enjoy the book a lot more if it was tightened up. I seriously doubt his target audience was limited to residents of one state who have a working knowledge of its university, dear!
Gotta love the review of the woman from Vermont who picks holes in Kennedy's geographical accuracy and suggests we'd all enjoy the book a lot more if it was tightened up. I seriously doubt his target audience was limited to residents of one state who have a working knowledge of its university, dear!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
One of my top 10
One of the things I don't understand is why Douglas Kennedy isn't better known - I came across him by accident and this was the first of his books I read. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Jay P
Page-turner
Another superbly plotted Douglas Kennedy thriller told from the point of view of a woman. This time, Kennedy's heroine is Hannah Buchan, daughter of a left-wing university... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Kate Hopkins
Liked!
I ordered this book for my wife and has enjoyed it very much as indeed she has liked other books by Doulas Kennedy.
Published 6 months ago by M. J. Paton
state of the union
This book was heavily recommended by a friend at work.
It isn't the kind of book that I normally read but my friend thought that I might enjoy it so I borrowed it from... Read more
It isn't the kind of book that I normally read but my friend thought that I might enjoy it so I borrowed it from... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Book Addict
Started off promising
The first part of the book set in the 70's started off fairly promising, it moved faster and seemed to have one theme and one story running through. Read more
Published 15 months ago by S. R. Morgan
Product review
Book in excellent condition and arrived within a few days. Story
itself a bit long but Douglas Kennedy fans probably used to this.
itself a bit long but Douglas Kennedy fans probably used to this.
Published 20 months ago by aileen
A page turner with many threads
A hugely entertaining book, that mixes the personal, political, and sentimental over the course of four decades, from youth's love and mistakes, to maternal love and fear. Read more
Published on 30 Jan 2010
Hard to put down
This is the fourth Douglas Kennedy I have read and like the others I found it a real page-turner. There is something very addictive about his stories and I like the fact that they... Read more
Published on 21 Feb 2009 by Anne Davis
Totally Absorbing
This is the second Kennedy novel I have read (the first being The Pursuit of Happiness)and I was just as captivated a second time! Read more
Published on 29 Aug 2008 by A. B. Taylor
Boring
I do not have much to say about this novel. I enjoyed reading the Dead Heart, The Pursuit of Happiness and The Big Picture, but I found this one uninteresting.
Published on 5 Jun 2008 by French reader
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