Customer Reviews

State of the Union

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just finished reading the French version and ordered the English version for Father's Day for my dad. I loved this book and wish it was not finished! I highly recommend it. Interestingly the translation of the title into French is : The Secret Charms of Married Life....having nothing to do with the English title.

Yes, for me, that book represents your country. It's a picture of it. For me, living from the outside, I see clearly the opposite sides, the paradoxal way of living in USA. It's a wonderful book telling the truth about convictions, souls and ways of living. It's a picture of New England. And it's a North book. I like it. By creating those personnalities, it's also drawing the political paradox of your country.


It's very, very sad reading the French version( I'm French Canadian). A lot, a lot of mistakes. For such a good book, it's something bad because it gives a shadow.

But for you, having the chance to read the English book, dont hesitate. It's a very, very good picture of "United" States of America.

Engaging story. Douglas Kennedy does a great job at weaving an interesting plot with varied characters, but his negative stereotyping of evangelical Christians got a bit old. Kennedy's radical leftists seemed human, with good and bad traits, but the Christians were all depicted as a bunch of losers, with no redeeming qualities. Life's not like that; there's always good and bad in people.

I am a fan of Kennedy. He is a good storyteller, easy to read, engaging. I have read and enjoyed several of his books. This book surprised me a bit. His sophomoric, trite, cartoonish portrayal of his characters' political views is downright silly. I guess you just have to laugh and try to ignore it for the sake of the story.

It was an incredible read that made me think about the characters and their actions long after I finished reading the book.

This is one of those books that will engage you from beginning to end by it's persuasive detail about one woman's emotional life. The author has an incredible ability to understand the minds of women.

I discovered another author to add to my list of favorites authors.

What happens when a two-day, spur-of-the-moment sexual affair that a young married woman has with a student radical thirty years previously comes back to haunt her in the most public and devastating of ways? This is the premise of "State of the Union", a very fine novel by Douglas Kennedy.


It is the late '60's and Hannah Latham, daughter of a famous radical history professor and an avant-garde artist defies her parents expectations and marries her quiet, button-down medical student boyfriend. By the time her husband, Ben, gets offered an internship in the one-horse town of Pelham, Maine, Hannah has given birth to a son and is feeling the stultifying boredom of being stuck in a small, insular town. Enter Tobias Judson, a student radical acquaintance of her father, who turns up on Hannah's doorstep whilst her husband is away, needing a place to crash for a few days. Hannah consents and embarks on a wild, two day sexual affair with him. However, Tobias is on the run from the FBI and blackmails Hannah into driving him across the border into Canada, thereby forcing her to commit a federal offence.

Fast forward thirty years, and Hannah is still married to Dr Dan and her two children have grown up. Life is rolling along nicely now that Dan is a successful orthopedic surgeon. That all comes crashing down when Hannah's delusional daughter goes missing and Tobias Judson, now a right-wing talkshow host, publishes his biography which details his affair with Hannah, with vastly embellished details. The press jumps on both her daughter's disappearance and Judson's biography and Hannah's life swiftly turns upside down in the worst possible way.

Kennedy does a marvellous job writing this novel as Hannah in first person narration. In my opinion, he pulls it off brilliantly. The plot is absolutely terrific, rivetting to the last. Kennedy poses a lot of questions about post 9/11 America. What constitutes a traitorous act? How should such a traitor be vilified? How can a traitor redeem themselves? What sort of accountability should a person have for an illegal act they were forced to do? My only quibble is that the ending resolves itself a little too neatly, but that is only a very minor concern. The book is tremendous and I have given it a 5-star rating.

In 1969, eighteen years old Hannah Latham has A Special Relationship with her parents; dysfunctional. Her father is a radical activist protesting anything; while her mother is an artist with mental issues. To them she is a major disappointment as she ignores the rebellion of her peers against authority. Instead Hannah wants out of the frantic family soap opera; so she marries medical student Dan Buchan; becomes pregnant; and moves to rural Maine. She becomes a librarian-housewife until her father's radical friend Tobias Judson arrives in Maine.

In 2003, Hannah feels her world imploding. Her college age daughter Lizzie vanishes after mentally breaking when she learns an inconvenient truth. Hannah's BFF is dying so she cannot turn to her for solace as she must provide comfort. Finally Toby reappears on national TV as her secret transgression from over three decades ago becomes known to all.

This is a profound character study as Hannah learns sometimes you get what you wish for only to regret you made the wrong wish. Although the issues seem relatively minor, the cast is solid especially the lead female who on any page seems over the edge of the emotional cliff. Through Hannah and her cohorts, Douglas Kennedy takes a close look at the hypocrisy of family values; pointing out that values can be negative and cherry-picking convenient; for instance the previous indiscretions of a born again are ignored by his or her peers regardless of what they might have been.

Harriet Klausner

This book is indeed a page-turner BUT I don't find it particularly well written (even for Douglas Kennedy's standards)and also, one of the reasons I kept on reading it was there are hardly any separations/gaps in the whole text, so there is no stopping point, so to speak.
I find it isn't very subtle and it could have been 1/3 slimmer and none the worse for it. What are the editors thinking/doing these days?!
Also, the whole Lizzie part seemed to be added as an afterthought. In my opinion, it would have been better to mention Hannah had had 2 kids, one sentence would have helped the whole Lizzie story seem more natural in the story-telling.
The author keeps using the word "assorted", for some reason.
I was expecting the last Billy twist, so all in all, it is indeed a book one wants to finish quickly, but that's about it, it doesn't haunt you after that, like a good book or indeed a good movie does.

I loved this book, I recommended it to many people. It's well written and you can't stop reading it because you want to know what's going to happen next. It teaches you a lot about relationships (couple, parent-children, friends), and a little bit of real history in the 60s.

I loved this book so much that I orginally thought about giving it to someone else to read as I do most books because I never consider reading paperback fiction novels twice - this is an exception! I am actually considering re-reading it. It touched me in so many ways. It is a reminder of the importance of living in the moment