Douglas Kennedy's fourth novel is set in New York, and is written
from the viewpoints of two women. The first is Kate, divorced and
discontented. The novel opens at her mother's funeral, where she
notices a striking, watchful stranger in her 70s. This woman, Sara
Smythe, soon contacts Kate and without any explanation asks,
insists even, that they should meet. Sara tells Kate that her
father Jack, who died when Kate was a baby, was the love of her
life. Then, only 60 pages into the novel, a bold switch of reader
involvement is required, as Sara's written account of her life and
her hidden love story fill the bulk of the novel. Sara also had a
brother Eric, with whom she had a wonderful bantering relationship
but also one of deepest affection and loyalty. She meets Jack
Malone on wartime leave and her love for him is immediate, though
he has to return for duty abroad the very next day. Despite his
earnest promises, she does not hear from him for four years. Only
much later does she learn that a casual relationship of his in
Britain during the war led to pregnancy and a reluctant marriage.
Their chequered love relationship continues amid the deepening
horror of the McCarthy witch-hunts, about which Kennedy writes with
passion and very well. Eric, who had been a member of the Communist
Party in his youth, is drawn into the nightmare of being pressured
to 'name names'. If he does not, he will not only be sacked, but
exposed as gay. Eric and Jack dislike each other, but Jack becomes
very supportive - until the truth of the complex network of
betrayal emerges. Eric's downfall and Sara's agony over him and her
flawed and adulterous relationship with Jack are movingly told.
Choices have to be made, with tragic consequences. The last 30
pages return to Kate, and her reactions, and how these revelations
about the past help to shift her own entrenched obstinacies. The
Pursuit of Happiness is a most ironic title for this thoughtful,
involving book, but a wiser Kate will continue to try to 'make
things work'. (Kirkus UK)
Manhattan, Thanksgiving eve, 1945. The war was over, and Eric Smythe's party was in full swing. All his clever Greenwich Village friends were there. So too was his sister Sara - an independent, canny young woman, starting to make her way in the big city. And then in walked a gatecrasher, Jack Malone - a U. S. Army journalist just back from a defeated Germany, and a man whose world-view did not tally with that of Eric and his friends. Set amidst the dynamic optimism of postwar New York and the subsequent nightmare of the McCarthy witch-hunts, The Pursuit of Happiness is a great tragic love story; a tale of divided loyalties, decisive moral choices, and the random workings of destiny.
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