Robin knew Paul wasn't perfect. Kennedy is a complete genius when it comes to understanding the minds of stylish but troubled women' Daily MirrorKennedy is an absolute master at love stories with heart-stopping twists' The Times`Kennedy's skill is to send you racing down the slope of sheer story.' Esquire
L'amour et la solitude, la possibilité de changer de vie, le hasard des rencontres, les choix qui s'offrent à nous, l'art de la fuite... et les femmes. Douglas Kennedy explore encore plus avant ses obsessions pour nous livrer une variation en douze mouvements. Dans l'Amérique des années soixante, en pleine crise de Cuba, un petit garçon attend le bus scolaire et n'a d'yeux que pour la fillette à côté de lui. Un long échange de regards et le garçon comprend que cet instant vient de marquer sa vie sentimentale future... Un homme rentre chez lui, complètement saoul et paniqué. La femme avec qui il vient de dîner l'appellera demain à 10h et il le sait, ce coup de fil pourrait bien chambouler toute sa vie... Erica pensait avoir géré son divorce comme elle gère sa carrière : rapidement, efficacement et avec détachement. Mais quand son ex lui propose de lui racheter la bague de fiançailles qu'il lui avait offerte, Erica n'a plus qu'une idée en tête, trouver la meilleure vengeance possible... La cinquantaine plan-plan, un brave père de famille se retrouve coincé à Vegas pour deux jours, l'occasion de tenter un très gros coup de poker... Une femme regarde son mari et se remémore le commentaire de sa mère au moment de l'annonce de leur fiançailles : "Ouais, fera l'affaire". Et c'était vrai. Alors pourquoi ce goût d'inachevé ?
Le jour où Maria, petite-bourgeoise de dix-sept ans, sèche son énième rendez-vous avec de jeunes marxistes, elle bouscule la vie tracée pour elle et se jette à la nuit : fêtes, drogues, amours multiples, rock et salsa. Dans la ville de Cali et l'effervescence des années 1970, elle choisit l'errance - à la poursuite d'elle-même et d'un rêve insaisissable : celui d'une jeunesse absolue.
Is it ever too late to find the life you always wanted? A modern day Brief Encounter or The Bridges of Madison County, this is a novel which poses the ultimate romantic dilemma, from the bestselling author of The Pursuit of Happiness, A Special Relationship, and The Moment. Is it ever too late to have the life you wanted? Or do we owe it to ourselves to pursue the promise of happiness? For twenty years, Laura has been a good wife and mother. She's supported her husband through redundancy, she's worried about her son, she's encouraged her daughter. She has been constant, caring and selfless. She's stopped thinking about her own dreams, the places she'd like to go and the books she'd like to talk about. But a chance meeting with a man in a hotel lobby - and the five days that follow - remind Laura of the young woman she used to be, and the woman she could have become. How long does it take to fall in love and leave your life behind?
Solomon Kugel, quasi quarantenne pieno di paure e ossessioni, decide di fuggire dalla città per trasferirsi con la moglie e il figlio a Stockton, sperando di ricominciare da zero e lasciarsi alle spalle i pericoli e il peso di un passato che non gli appartiene, legato alla storia della sua gente, all'Olocausto e alla guerra. Con loro c'è anche l'anziana madre di Kugel, ostinata nel negare la realtà e comportarsi come una superstite delle persecuzioni naziste, nonostante sia nata in America e abbia visitato un campo di concentramento solo da turista. A complicare le cose, un misterioso piromane minaccia gli abitanti della zona, appiccando fuoco alle fattorie vicine. Per Kugel, che non riesce a scacciare il pensiero della morte e tiene un taccuino per annotare le «ultime parole» da pronunciare nel momento fatale, questa situazione è angosciante. Tuttavia, è un ottimista che ha un disperato bisogno che le cose migliorino, il che lo porta a pensare al peggio. Una notte, sente strani rumori dalla soffitta e scopre una donna molto anziana, malata, che afferma di scrivere un libro e di voler rimanere finché non lo avrà finito. Ironia vuole che si presenti come Anne Frank, sopravvissuta ai nazisti e nascosta lì da quarant'anni.
A chronicle of travels through modern Egypt; a landscape strewn with incongruities and peopled by a vivid cast of characters. Their stories form part of Kennedy's funny, yet ultimately serious portrait of Egypt today. Sidestepping the usual pyramids, he finds an alternative Egypt
Travel writer Thomas Nesbitt, age 50, retreats into his house in Maine to wallow in memories of living in Germany 25 years earlier after the success of his first book. In West Berlin as a worker for Radio Liberty, Thomas meets his soul mate, Petra Dussmann, a translator with an iron curtain around her heart. Petra's mysterious melancholy proves irresistible, and as Thomas is drawn into a passionate affair, he also becomes entangled in spy games played by the Stasi and the CIA.
When Harry Ricks arrives in Paris on a bleak January morning he is a broken man. He is running away from a failed marriage and a dark scandal that ruined his career as a film lecturer in a small American university. With no money and nowhere to live, Harry swiftly falls in with the city’s underclass, barely scraping a living while trying to finish the book he’d always dreamed of writing. A chance meeting with a mysterious woman, Margit Kadar, with whom Harry falls in love, is his only hope of a brighter future. However, Margit isn’t all she seems to be and Harry increasingly feels that a dark force is at work in his life — as punishment begins to be meted out to anyone who has recently done him wrong. Before he knows it, he finds himself of increasing interest to the police, and waking up in a nightmare from which there is no easy escape.
On the night of her thirteenth birthday, Jane Howard made a vow to her warring parents - she would never get married and she would never have children. But life, as Jane comes to discover, is a profoundly random business. Many years and many lives later, she is a professor in Boston, in love with a brilliant, erratic man named Theo. And then Jane falls pregnant. Motherhood turns out to be a great welcome surprise - but when a devastating turn of events tears her existence apart she has no choice but to flee all she knows and leave the world. Just when she has renounced life itself, the disappearance of a young girl pulls her back from the edge and into an obsessive search for some sort of personal redemption. Convinced that she knows more about the case than the police do, she is forced to make a decision - stay hidden or bring to light a shattering truth. Douglas Kennedy's exceptional new novel is a portrait of the way we live now, of the many routes we follow in the course of a single life, and of the arbitrary nature of destiny. Like his previous highly acclaimed novels it is also a compulsive read - and one which speaks volumes about the dilemmas we face in trying to navigate our way through all that fate throws in our path.
Lituania, fine della seconda guerra mondiale. Un bambino di otto anni emaciato e sporco, emerge dalle macerie e dalle stragi del fronte occidentale e vaga senza meta nella neve con un braccio rotto e una catena stretta al collo. Quel bambino è Hannibal Lecter, fuggito dal casino di caccia in cui si era rifugiato con la famiglia per scampare alla violenza delle soldataglie. Gli occhi attraversati da un'indecifrabile espressione, chiuso in un ostinato silenzio, il piccolo Hannibal cresce nell'orfanotrofio russo che lo ospita in una solitudine apparentemente assoluta. Lo zio, un famoso pittore, riesce a rintracciarlo e lo porta a vivere con sé a Parigi. Qui, grazie alle amorevoli cure di sua moglie, Hannibal avrà modo di scoprire e coltivare i suoi innumerevoli talenti, che spaziano dalla musica alla letteratura, dall'arte alla medicina. È in questa atmosfera, densa di stimoli e suggestioni, che il giovane comincerà a edificare un vero e proprio "palazzo della memoria", impreziosendolo di visioni spettacolari e insieme agghiaccianti, teatro e sfondo interiore delle più raffinate speculazioni come dei più inconfessabili desideri. Fino al giorno in cui Hannibal decide che è tempo di tornare a casa e bussare alla porta dei demoni che così spesso vengono a fargli visita...
L'actualité politique récente des États-Unis ne cesse de rappeler le poids considérable que joue la religion - en particulier, les fondamentalistes chrétiens - dans la vie publique de ce pays. Douglas Kennedy avait pressenti cette évolution. Poussé par le désir de comprendre, il est alors parti à la découverte des Etats du sud du pays - connus sous le nom de « Ceinture de la Bible » -, et de leurs habitants, ces hommes et ces femmes animés d'une foi inébranlable. Un ancien mafieux, de jeunes rockers, un prêtre faiseur de miracles, une femme d'affaires impitoyable sont quelques-uns des personnages insolites qu'il a rencontrés et qui composent sous sa plume incisive une galerie de portraits aussi fascinante qu'inquiétante.
'Ring Magic Is Different From The Magic Of The Theatre, Because The Curtain Never Comes Down - Because The Blood In The Ring Is Real Blood, And The Broken Noses And The Broken Hearts Are Real, And Sometimes They Are Broken Forever. Boxing Is The Magic Of Men In Combat, The Magic Of Will, And Skill, And Pain, And The Risking Of Everything So You Can Respect Yourself For The Rest Of Your Life.'The Hermetic World Of Boxing Is Notoriously Difficult For Outsiders To Understand, Though It Has Provided A Source Of Fascination To Numerous Writers, Including Norman Mailer, A. J. Liebling, Joyce Carol Oates And Ernest Hemingway. F. X. Toole Is A Dazzling New Writer With A Fresh And Original Voice, Who Has Been A Boxing Professional For Over Twenty-Five Years. Rope Burns, A Collection Of Short Stories And A Novella, Is Written From This Unique Perspective.
Un premier roman déchirant, un réquisitoire sans concession contre la guerre, une superbe histoire d'amour, miroir de la relation passionnelle que les Israéliens ont nouée avec leur pays. Israël, 1977. Lily a vingt ans. Elle est étudiante à l'université de Jérusalem. Un vendredi matin, alors qu'elle fait de l'auto-stop pour rejoindre Tel - Aviv, un automobiliste s'arrête. Il s'appelle Ami. Lily vient de rencontrer l'homme de sa vie. Pourtant, lorsqu'elle apprend qu'il est interrogateur pour l'armée israélienne, Lily, l'enfant des kibboutz, est révulsée. Puis elle comprend que la finesse psychologique, l'humanité et la perspicacité qui rendent Ami si irrésistible sont précisément les qualités qui font de lui le meilleur interrogateur de Tsahal. Déchiré entre sa loyauté patriotique et ses sympathies palestiniennes, Ami s'indigne de la brutalité de l'armée et de l'occupation des Territoires, et décide de démissionner. Hélas ! le destin ne va pas tarder à le rappeler à l'ordre...
E' il pianista Władysław Szpilman l'autore e al contempo il protagonista di questo libro ambientato a Varsavia durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale. Egli racconta la storia di un uomo, sfuggito alla deportazione nascondendosi fra le rovine del ghetto, che è anche e soprattutto la storia dell'umiliazione e della distruzione del popolo ebreo. Un ufficiale tedesco lo aiuterà a sopravvivere.
Approdato a una tarda, linguacciuta, rissosa età, Barney Panofsky impugna la penna per difendersi dall'accusa di omicidio, e da altre calunnie non meno incresciose, diffuse dal suo arcinemico Terry McIver. Così, fra quattro dita di whisky e una boccata di Montecristo, Barney ripercorre la vita allegramente dissipata e profondamente scorretta che dal quartiere ebraico di Montreal lo ha portato nella Parigi dei primi anni Cinquanta e poi di nuovo in Canada, a trasformare le idee rastrellate nella giovinezza in "sitcom" decisamente popolari e altrettanto redditizie.
Manhattan, Thanksgiving Eve 1945. War is over and Eric Smythe's party is swinging. Everyone is there, including his sister Sara. Then in walks the gatecrasher - Jack Malone, an army journalist fresh from a defeated Germany. This chance meeting between Sara and Jack will have profound consequences
Frankie Blue og hans venner har holdt sammen siden skoletiden i det vestlige London. De aftalte dengang, at en gang om året, den 14. august, ville de mødes uanset hvad. Frankie bliver gift og naturligvis har hans kone fødselsdag netop på denne dato. Nu står Frankie med et valg: Konen eller vennerne?
Douglas Kennedy's outstanding new novel, THE JOB, is a thrilling page-turner involving downsizing, blackmail and murder in the Manhattan business world. Ned Allen is young, smart, and upwardly mobile. Several years into his career as an ad salesman for a successful computer magazine, Ned's finally left his small-town roots behind, and is certain that the sophisticated Manhattan world he covets is his forever. His wife Lizzie is also a rising star of a prestigious PR firm. It seems that Ned's made it. But then what appeared to be a career break shows its true colours. Ned's forced to make some tough calls, among them a question of ethics and the small matter of whether to lie to his wife - and when the tough calls just keep getting tougher he finds himself on the brink of losing everything ... Cautionary tale, compelling thriller, portrait of a man on the edge, Douglas Kennedy's THE JOB is a ruthlessly entertaining exploration of the fragility of modern life and the depths we'll go to in our quest to preserve it.
Una brillante novela de intriga política, un clásico en la obra de Montalbán. "Galindez es un texto potente, vigoroso, resuelto con pericia técnica indudable, escrito con desnudez y con pulso narrativo" Miguel García Posada, El país. "Galíndez es apasionante y tiene la honestidad de dar suficientes pistas para distinguir lo imaginario de lo real, los nombres propios de los de ficción. Es inevitable recordar aquí viejas discusiones sobre periodismo y literatura, en las que siempre se utiliza uno de los dos términos como peyorativo para la persona que los reúne. Nunca ha sido el problema de Vázquez Montalbán ni de algunos de sus compañeros de generación. Su prosa nunca ha dejado de ser mágica y su información nunca ha dejado de ser real". Eduardo Haro Tecglen, El País.
