Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Search - The Big Picture (Audio Cassette)

The Big Picture (Audio Cassette)
The Big Picture - Audio Cassette
Author: Douglas Kennedy
ISBN-13: 9780671575649
ISBN-10: 0671575643
Edition: Abridged
Rating:
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 2

4 stars, based on 2 ratings
Publisher: Audioworks
Book Type: Audio Cassette
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review
We're sorry, our database doesn't have book description information for this item. Check Amazon's database -- you can return to this page by closing the new browser tab/window if you want to obtain the book from PaperBackSwap.
Read All 2 Book Reviews of "The Big Picture Audio Cassette"

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

reviewed The Big Picture (Audio Cassette) on
This is a really good story. It is not your usual ending.
reviewed The Big Picture (Audio Cassette) on + 377 more book reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This astonishingly assured first novel, by an American working in London as a journalist, has a breathless readability that is rare-particularly as it seems at first to cover pretty familiar territory. Ben Bradford is a Wall Street lawyer living a comfortable life in Connecticut, with a wife and two small children, but he seems to be heading, rather early, for a midlife crisis. He had always wanted to be a photographer, still putters around at it, but feels his life is ebbing away. Beth, his wife, a frustrated novelist, is increasingly estranged from him. Then Ben discovers she has taken a lover-ironically, another failed photographer-and in a confrontation with the man, Gary Summers, Ben's accumulated rage leads to a moment of murderous madness. Both Beth's infatuation with Gary and Ben's maniacal rage seem rather out of character, but with that caveat, the rest of this headlong novel grips like a vise as Ben carefully covers up his crime, disappears and takes on his victim's identity. The Big Picture has to be the most careful and imaginative exploration of such a situation ever penned, from the details of how one convincingly contrives an apparent accidental death to the minutiae of building a new life, unrecognized, in a far place. In Ben's case, it is a small town in Montana, and his born-again existence there is rich in ironies, from his eventual success as a photographer to his ultimate need to disappear yet again. The book is more than just a compelling read: it also has poignant and moving things to say about lost opportunities and wasted lives in America, the cynical quality of sudden fame, the awfulness of willed separation from deeply loved children.


Genres: