Five Days

March 4, 2013
Laura Warren is a radiographic technician in Maine, trained to spot disease in others, but unable to determine the cause of her own sadness in the bumpy 11th novel from Kennedy (The Moment). Laura’s family is unhappy–her husband’s lengthy unemployment has made him angry and resentful; her 19-year-old son, Ben, an artist, is bereft over a failed love affair; and she feels disconnected from her teenaged daughter, Sally. Her own midlife and marital crises are taking a toll on her, and after finding herself uncharacteristically shaken by the sadness she inevitably sees in her job, Laura jumps at the opportunity for a weekend conference in Boston. There she meets Richard Copeland, an equally confused and unhappy insurance salesman, and the two feel an immediate attraction. Laura and Richard find in their shared loneliness a common longing to lead a better life together, if they can find the courage to change. While Laura and Richard’s quickly developing relationship is rarely believable, Laura’s confusion and fear are well drawn, and Kennedy ably raises questions about marriage, identity, and happiness. Agent: Antony Harwood, Antony Harwood Literary Agency.

April 1, 2013
Two middle-aged, ordinary Mainers have an opportunity to alter their lives through love. Laura, a radiology technician in a small town, is a seasoned diagnostician of the benign or deadly menaces lurking within her patients, even if delivery of the good or bad news must be left to her supervising physician. The fact that she has sold herself short all her life has led to disappointments on every level, from her failure to qualify for med school to a marriage, now two decades in duration, that she essentially transacted on the rebound from her first serious love affair. When, at a conference in a Boston hotel, she meets, by chance, insurance salesman Richard, she soon sees the parallels in their lives. He too allowed strictures in his life to curtail his dreams. A domineering father prevented him from having the writing career he wanted, just when he was on the verge of entering an MFA program, accompanied by the woman he loved. He too married someone on the rebound, a woman who has proven to be just as cold and insensitive as Laura's husband, Dan. Laura's marriage was tolerable until Dan was downsized by Maine's most iconic mail-order company, then forced to accept a humiliating demotion to the stockroom. As Richard and Laura share meals and drinks, their feeling of kindred spirithood grows as they recognize each other's unique qualities, mostly having to do with the love of books, culture and English vocabulary. Turns out, Richard has been planning his escape for a while and has even spotted a Boston apartment where his future will unfurl. As passionate embraces cinch the deal, it seems that these two lost souls have lucked into a second chance--but will they dare to take it? Despite pages of self-revelatory dialogue, Richard and Laura remain ciphers who may not command enough reader identification to make us care whether their future promises new love or merely a fresh hell. Despite some character underdevelopment, a fine tale of lives re-examined.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 1, 2012

An international best seller, loved in France (where he lives part-time) and finally acknowledged here, Kennedy returns with an adult love story. Laura, whose work as an X-ray technician at a small hospital in Maine leaves her stunned by the general unfairness of life, is facing an empty nest and an increasingly distant husband. On a business trip to Boston, she meets seemingly bland salesman Richard, but a second look shows him to have greater depths. I loved Kennedy's recent The Moment and am anticipating this very different book.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2013
Radiology technician Laura Warren has begun to lose her professional detachment, falling apart emotionally whenever she detects a malignancy. She knows part of the problem is her 23-year marriage, which has become increasingly difficult ever since her husband, Dan, lost his job; however, she has also come to realize she has never fulfilled her potential and could have gone on to medical school if she had possessed more self-confidence and parental support. Full of regret and incredibly lonely, she attends a radiology conference in Boston and meets a graying, married insurance salesman who turns out to be smart, sensitive, and just as lonely as she is. Their passionate affair gives her the impetus to remake her life and to embrace change instead of clinging to stifling routine. The prolific Kennedy (The Moment, 2011) explores his favored themes of mortality, love, and loss in this fluidly written tale. Deftly depicting how certain choices can unexpectedly narrow a life, instead of expanding it, Kennedy has much to say about the nature of happiness, the difficulty of change, and the great divide between obligation and desire.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)