Customer Reviews

Temptation

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4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Douglas Kennedy has an amazing talent as a modern novelist. He has that particular skill to pull the reader into his tale, ensures you can relate personally with at least the main character and drives the story forward not letting up till the last word is written. Calling a book a "page-turner" has become a well used cliché, and has been for many years. However this novel, Temptation, is a riveting yarn, feeling the protagonist's visceral elations and the dregs he feels while fighting for his personal and professional life. Temptation is a well told tale.

David Armitage happens to be a regular guy, a struggling writer who has been working at a commercial bookstore for thirteen years. David's wife tried the acting gig, both moving from the mid west to become successful artists in the "big smoke", Hollywood, only finding the pressures of simply making a living, putting food on the table, too great, so both get "regular jobs...he a retailer and she a telemarketer. Then the baby comes along and now making a living becomes serious. David however continues to write stage plays and screenplays, managing to get a true blue agent that believes in his talent, a rarity, it seems, in tinsel town.

One morning he receives "the" phone call that every writer only dreams about: a studio has an interest in his script and wants to buy it and do a pilot for television. The avalanche of success begins, and the pilot leads to a hit comedy that skyrockets in the ratings...David Armitage is now the most talked about writer in town and the bucks are rolling in.

The goddess of success, however, is not a compassionate mistress, and David Armitage, blind to the many pitfalls, leaves his wife and daughter for a high octane producer at the Fox Network. Life could not really get any better, money, a beautiful girlfriend, lavish apartment, liquid lunches, presentation dinners and a request from a multi-billionaire to collaborate on a new project.

Armitage is invited to the billionaire's personal island in the Caribbean, experiencing luxury in the extreme, meeting the man's beautiful wife when, slowly, things start to go awry in David's life. Has he sabotaged his own success or is there something more sinister going on?

Temptation is an entertaining and clever novel. As readers, we actually feel David's euphoria from his successes and his frustration, anger and his want of revenge when life turns in the wrong direction.

I have never been disappointed with any of Kennedy's novels and certainly not with this one.

Another masterpiece by Douglas Kennedy. There is nothing better than reading a novel where you just get sucked in and you cannot put it down, this is one of those novels.

I've read several of Kennedy's novels, and each one kept me turning the pages. In "Temptation," we have struggling novelist and playwright named David Armitage, who finally gets his big break. Then all kinds of problems begin (he looses his wife, for one).

I don't want to reveal too much of the plot. I'll simply say that I finished the novel in three evenings and didn't want to stop turning the pages. Kennedy really makes you care for David, but he has enough of a light tone to keep you from being depressed when David looses it all.

Highly recommended. The best Douglas Kennedy novel I have read is "The

Big Picture." If you haven't read any of his books, start here. I stayed up until three AM finishing it.

The Big Picture

The best thing about "Temptation" is that it makes no demands on the reader. This novel is very, very, very, easy to read. That probably accounts for its popularity.

There's something to be said for light literature. You can read it anywhere, on a plane, at a bus stop or in a hotel lobby and still carry on a conversation or perform neuro-surgery. The plot should be simple, the characters generally distinguishable from one another and there should be some sort of denouement which will be satisfactory to the reader, even if it's rather implausible.

Kennedy fulfills all of these criteria. The novel is about a writer, David Armitage, who finds "overnight success" and proceeds to be enthralled by all the trappings of wealth. He reveals a weaker side to his character, dumps his wife and child, spends, spends spends and begins a downward spiral into self-destruction. So much for original theme.

Most of the characters in "Temptation" are self-absorbed social climbers who want to profit from David's success, but this is Hollywood, so what else is new? Apart from two nice characters in the novel, the rest are caricatures of one dimensional grubs. Into this plot enters a sort of George Souros cum Howard Hughes weirdo who never makes sense. We are supposed to regard this billionaire as some sort of Satanic creature, the snake in the Garden of Eden, perhaps, who has come to ruin David's joy by leading him into temptation.

This novel is so blatantly didactic that it smacks of the pulpit. David is a modern Icarus who flies too close to the sun and is consumed by it. Apparently, the American dream of ambition and success are bad things, according to the author and so David must be taught a lesson.

There is so much symbolism here and it's all unsubtle, which is paradoxical isn't it? Everything is spelled out in full, so that nothing can be deduced or discussed. There is no controversy at all. David was greedy. David was selfish and so must suffer. It's no mere coincidence that he loses weight, grows his hair and beard and someone makes a reference to Jesus. David's being crucified. Get it? That's what I mean by nothing left to chance. Kennedy leaves no message unhammered.

Can I recommend "Temptation"? Yes, as light reading which should make all failures very content in their little hovels. Rich people bad, poor people, good. I have heard that message somewhere before and camels having a hard time getting through eyes of needles springs to mind, but as one of my favourite TV characters once commented on being reminded that the meek shall inherit the earth. "Yes, but the meek don't want it."

If you like moralising then you will be satisfied by Douglas Kennedy's "Temptation". Don't be surprised, though, if somebody turns it into a film with Jude Law or Tom Hanks as the star or maybe Tom Cruise. Surely not Mel Gibson, though he would enjoy the fallen idol and messianic role, wouldn't he?

I have read several of the author's works. By and large they are gripping, well-written, purely escapist/fantasy tales whose narrators, usually middle-aged men, are given an opportunity to leave their life, or start over again. Or-in the case of TEMPTATION-become the most successful television writer of a generation, ONLY to have it all taken away from you where you have to start over again. I am a middle-aged man who has DEFINITELY fantasized about faking my death and leaving town only to become a Pultizer Prize winning photographer......well if only for a few seconds, I swear honey (if my wife is reading this). I think there is a tendency to over-analyze books like TEMPTATION or THE BIG PICTURE. While that is useful with works that have multiple layers of meaning, like MOBY DICK or THE ODYSSEY, less is definitely more when it comes to TEMPATION. They should be read on a beach, under an umbrella, with a cool drink in hand. Now I have to end this review because a beautiful woman I've never met before just approached me in my local cafe and said, "Well hello Tom, I thought you'd like to meet your twelve year old son. By the way we are all going to die unless you can deliver the plans for the new XRT-2 stealth rocket you've been working on at NASA (how DID she know that)? So I have to go now.....but have fun with this book.

This is below his other books which are ones you "can't put down." Even using a little imagination, it was difficult to believe. His other books have been outstanding. The author

summed up things toward the end that were just to far fetched. Does not even compare to his other

great books. g.gerig

Temptation is my first trip into Kennedy country and it was a mildly entertaining one. We meet screenwriter David Armitage who has just sold his first script after 11 years of toil and in front of him are a string of moral dilemmas and 'temptations'.

While this is little more than Hollywood melodrama it was an entertaining read but I couldn't help but feel I knew what was coming each step of the way.

All in all an entertaining distraction and I will probably venture to Kennedy country again, but hopefully his more esteemed novels - The Big Picture, State of the Union - will have slightly more to offer.

This book was ok, but not a page-turner for me. It was a little too predictable along the way. I usually read at least two books a week. I've been plugging away at this one for almost three weeks because I don't have enough interest to see what happens next.

I am a fan of Douglas Kennedy and am working my way through all of his books. This one is terrible. It is his worst. Fortunately his others are so good that I will not give up on him.

This author just gets better with every book he writes. I hope he never stops!