The Pursuit of Happiness by Douglas Kennedy

The Pursuit of Happiness

Douglas Kennedy

Set in America during the 50s and 60s, this is more than just a love story. It is about the politics of the time, loyalty, family and morals, and how all of this influences the choices that the main characters make. I found the heroine slightly stuffy, but overall a good read.

Extract
As it turned out, Mr Hoover and his associates reckoned that my dead brother was no longer a threat to national security - so unless they had the Riverside Chapel covertly staked out, I could detect no sign of the FBI presence. Instead the dozen mourners who dared to show their faces sat together in the first two rows as a Unitarian minister made a series of telling comments about Eric's integrity, his sense of conscience, his courage.
Parallels
  • The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  • The Way We Were - the film