Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
Published: 25/07/2019
ISBN: 9781473572294
Length: 1169 Minutes
RRP: £16.00
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Great Wide Open written by Douglas Kennedy, read by Regina Reagan.
“All families are secret societies. Realms of intrigue and internal warfare, governed by their own rules . . .”
It’s 1980s New York. Heady, excessive times. Alice Burns - a young book editor - is deep into a manuscript about the morass of family life. The observations resonates, perhaps because she has just watched her own family implode.
As she reads she wonders: When did the sadness start? And could it be that unhappiness is a choice?
Thus begins a great American epic which follows Alice as she navigates high school bullying, first love and sexism at an elite college, a spell in 1970's Ireland, and a tragedy that sends her stateside as the US embraces a cowboy actor named Reagan. But it is also the tale of her endlessly complex parents and brothers; how their destinies are written by the lies they tell themselves and others.
The Great Wide Open is an immensely ambitious and compulsive saga; a novel which will speak volumes to anyone who has marvelled at that pain that can only be caused by family itself.
Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
Published: 25/07/2019
ISBN: 9781473572294
Length: 1169 Minutes
RRP: £16.00
This novel is a page-turner with a relentless pace
Has a strangely mesmerising effect . . . absolutely excellent.
Kennedy is skilled at zigzag plotting, blending domestic twists with turns created by global affairs.
An ambitious tale from a reliably compelling story teller.
Douglas Kennedy sensitively engages with issues that still affect America to this day and creates a story with realism and heart