julie's Reviews > State of the Union

i've been on a douglas kennedy reading jag of late. this is my fourth in as many weeks. it was the fastest read for me, mostly because i couldn't put it down. i think it moved me the most as well, i was actually in tears at the end. kennedy can really get inside the head of a woman (tho' he did put some strange and seemingly out-of-character behavior in Hannah during her ordeal). and he is a master at painting characters who are full of doubts and regrets for the choices they've made and fears that they've lived the wrong life. i guess i relate to this, mostly because i almost lived the wrong life, but then, before it was too late, changed it.

the other thing about kennedy's writing is that it awakens my own stories and inspires me to write as well. and since writing helps me figure out what it is i think of things and well, the world, that's a good thing. i've already moved onto my next kennedy and i'm sure it won't be the last.

since i use my goodreads as a place to store quotes which i wish to remember:

"In Mom's universe, nobody interesting was normal or decent. Those virtues were for the terminally boring."

"My point is that you've got to stop looking at your parents as parents and start seeing them as typically fucked-up adults....which is what we're going to become eventually."

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." (quoting Milton.)

"No one except the two central participants can ever really understand the complex internal geography of a marriage."

"But what's wrong with doubt? HJow can anyone hold a black-and-white view of things when, in the end, most human interaction is so profoundly grey? Those closest to us do things that are baffling. We, in turn, do things we don't totally comprehend. Because we never really understand others, let alone ourselves."