Featured Reading Guide
Douglas Kennedy
Sally Goodchild, a thirty-seven-year-old American journalist, suddenly finds herself pregnant and married to an English foreign correspondent, Tony Hobbs, whom she met while they were both on assignment in Cairo. From the outset Sally’s relationship with both Tony and London is an uneasy one – as she finds her husband and his city to be far more foreign than imagined. But her problems soon turn to nightmares when she discovers that everything can be taken down and used against you.
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I read this book when I moved to London and could identify with Sally’s first-time experience in the English capital too well.
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Douglas Kennedy’s novels – The Dead Heart , The Big Picture , The Job , The Pursuit of Happiness , A Special Relationship and State of the Union – have all been highly praised bestsellers. He is also the author of three acclaimed travel books: Beyond the Pyramids , In God’s Country , and Chasing Mammon . His work has been translated into sixteen languages. In 2006 he received the French decoration of Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Born in Manhattan in 1955, he lives in London with his wife and two children.
topAbout the Book
Sally Goodchild, a thirty-seven-year-old American journalist, suddenly finds herself pregnant and married to an English foreign correspondent, Tony Hobbs, whom she met while they were both on assignment in Cairo. From the outset Sally’s relationship with both Tony and London is an uneasy one – as she finds her husband and his city to be far more foreign than imagined. But her problems soon turn to nightmares when she discovers that everything can be taken down and used against you.
topDouglas Kennedy interview/review
Taken from The Bookseller 4/7/03
“The most important decision in my career was to write The Pursuit of Happiness. I had written three very successful novels that could be described as thrillers. I could have carried on in that direction, and that is what my US publishers wanted me to do. But I made a conscious decision to go off for a year and a half and write a very different book.”
“I just consider myself a novelist. What I try to do is write popular serious fiction: books that are plot-driven, but which try to grapple with serious stuff.”
“A Special Relationship brings two aspects of my writing together: the social observation and then, towards the end, the page-turning quality of a thriller. Having written a series of novels set in New York – where I had not in fact lived for 20 years – I was interested in writing a contemporary London novel, which would look at the city with an outsider’s eye. I wanted the book to begin like an adventure novel, but then move into Henry James territory.”
“The London that Sally Goodchild inhabits is very real. She doesn’t get it at first, and it takes her a long time to sort it out. She is someone who is trying to find her way, and not really succeeding.”
“I was writing the book as someone who has lived in London for 16 years, but I was doing it from the prospective of a woman who is new to the city. Anyone who lives in London has to be ambivalent to it: on one level, the city is culturally very exciting but, on another, it is a mess, and always has been.”
“I don’t find it terribly hard to write from the female perspective. The trick is not to try and work out ‘what women want’, but to follow the character. What’s important is not to think about how a woman would react to a certain situation, but to ask what Sally Goodchild would think.”
“Plots don’t come in one big rush. I had the idea of an independent woman in her late 30s, finding herself pregnant, and needing to make that now-or-never decision. From this I got the trigger for the rest of the book.”
topStarting Points for Discussion
- In the interview Kennedy says he doesn’t find it hard to write from the female perspective. How successful do you think he is at describing Sally’s emotional state?
- It’s clear from the beginning that Sally enjoys the challenges and stresses of working as a war correspondent. Do you feel that her character in any way contributes to what happens to her? Do you like her?
- How is London characterised in the novel? Can you see this happening elsewhere, or does the British character contribute to Sally’s sense of isolation? Do you feel his depictions of the subsidiary characters to be realistic?
- At the beginning of the book Sally’s world is a series of far-flung foreign hotspots, and it swiftly narrows to a house in Putney with a baby she feels nothing for. How does the structure of the novel reflect Sally’s experiences?
- Tony is depicted as an out-and-out villain. Do you feel he has any redeeming features? Does this make him a realistic character?
- The battle between Sally and Tony culminates in a courtroom scene. What other devices does the author use to make the novel suspenseful?
Other Books by Douglas Kennedy
A Special Relationship
‘About an hour after I met Tony Hobbs, he saved my life. I know that sounds …
Leaving the World
On the night of her thirteenth birthday, Jane Howard made a vow to her warring…
State Of The Union
America in the Sixties was an era of radical upheaval – of civil rights pro…
Suggested Further Reading
- The Pilot’s Wife ~ Anita Shreve
- Back When We Were Grown-ups ~ Anne Tyler
- On Green Dolphin Street ~ Sebastian Faulks
- Big Stone Gap ~ Adriana Trigiani
- Until the Real Thing Comes Along ~ Elizabeth Berg
I read this book when I moved to London and could identify with Sally’s first-time experience in the English capital too well.
Posted by Nicole on 2009-04-18