The Big Picture [Paperback]

Douglas Kennedy (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Hyperion (1996)
• ASIN: B001APD3Q2
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More, Mr. Kennedy, More!!, December 27, 2001

By 

Ronald A. Barber "biggiemunn" (Brentwood, Missouri United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Big Picture (Audio Cassette)

i have two criticisms of 'the big picture'---1)douglas
kennedy uses the word 'vertiginous' too often and 2)i
don't have any idea how the protaganist ben bradford/
gary summers didn't explode from all the booze and food
he drank and ate..
otherwise, what a helluva book! i've read both of
mr. kennedy's books over the holidays and would gladly
stay up thru the night to read anything this guy writes...
more, mr. kennedy, more! i have such admiration for authors
like you who can weave such tremendous reads.
even a bad book by this author would be better reading than
most writers' best works (and, no, i'm not related to him nor have i ever met him). read douglas kennedy's work---if you want to read the best to come down the pike in a long while. bar none.

4.0 out of 5 stars American Beauty without the light at the end of the tunnel, October 30, 2004

By 

Ash Hibbert (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Big Picture (Audio Cassette)

The Big Picture entertains the primal fantasy of getting away with murder, which might make it the kind of book many a prospective reader would not touch with a very long stick. It quickly becomes apparent however that this is also an existential novel up there with Albert Camus' The Outsider.

Kennedy's magic is in his creation of an Everyman who manages to fill the book with a unique aura - an admirable protagonist, Ben, through whom we experience the novel through with complete comfort and belief - as well his immense care for detail.

Photography features both as Ben's passion and a metaphor for his evolution. For in life, as well as in his photography, subjects are at their best when they are not posturing. Ben's life has been an attempt to fit a frame that has been handed to him yet his epiphany is that we are only alive when we forget about `what people might think'.

This is a personal and meaningful story that succeeds as a serious, compassionate portrayal of one man's attempt to wipe the slate clean and live the life that he would have preferred. Think American Beauty with no light at the end of the tunnel.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Real Page-Turner To The End, August 16, 2001

By 

Harvey L. Gardner (White House, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Big Picture (Audio Cassette)

This is quite simply the best novel I've read in years! I couldn't put it down. After this one, you'll be sleep deprived, but thrilled and looking for more from Douglas Kennedy.