(Hutchinson, $36.99)The cheapest way to read books in these budget-minded days is actually to re-read ones you already have, or go to the library. otherwise, you’re at least guarantee you’re not wasting money by sticking with a writer who you already know and like. Douglas Kennedy is one such writer as far as I am concerned. You may remember his first hit, The Big Picture, which featured a bottle of our very own Cloudy Bay wine as the murder weapon. Mr you may have come to him a bit later with his books The Pursuit of Happiness or State of the Union. His last one, The Woman in the Fifth, was quite different but I still loved it.
With a name like Douglas Kennedy you might expect him to write about big burly blokes fending off savages in the wilderness or wrestling other big burly blokes to the ground in the spy world, but no. In Leaving the World, he yet again narrates the book from a female character’s perspective. I’d love to talk to his wife and see if he is as good at understanding women in real life because he certainly writes very credibly from inside their skin on the page.
Jane Howard decides as a 13-year-old to never emulate her parents’ awful marriage, and to never have children. As soon as she’s able, she escapes home for a scholarship at Harvard where she does fall madly in love, but that little episode has a sad ending and Jane runs away. This escape trick of hers is something she will repeat many times over the next 300 pages or so when things end sadly, and they most certainly often do. But as Jane eventually finds out, you can only run so far before your past catches up with you or you catch up with it.
So much happens in this story that if you are after a fast-moving, plot-based page-turner, you are going to be utterly thrilled – it is excellent value for money.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
