In Review

21 November 2008 22:15 BST

Temptation by Douglas Kennedy

Published by Hutchinson, out now, hardback, 307pp, £14.99.

In a nutshell…

Gripping. Hollywood. Love. Life. Loss.

What's it all about?

David Armitage is a middle-aged screenwriter who spends years toiling away in the backwaters with his failing actor wife playing breadwinner in their one-child family. He then makes that long-awaited breakthrough with a sitcom called Selling You and his life changes in a heartbeat. Suddenly he's the next big thing and, like the Hollywood cliché, he walks out on his wife and daughter, makes home with TV high-flier Sally Birmingham and enjoys all the trappings that fame and fortune bring.

But things are never good for long and a chance invite to the Caribbean island of reclusive billionaire film buff Philip Fleck sets a chain of events in motion which leaves Armitage re-addressing everything that is important to him as he desperately attempts to cling on to his newfound success and ensure that he does not lose the love of his daughter.

Who's it by?

Douglas Kennedy is much like the main protagonist in this book. He stumbled on success as a 41-year-old after leaving New York for London via Dublin and is now one of the bestselling novelists in Europe. He has forged a reputation of late with a string of engrossing works of fiction, which entice the reader in and make it very hard to leave.

After starting off working as a journalist for a number of Irish newspapers and as a moderately successful writer for stage and radio plays, Kennedy published his first book in 1988, when his account of Egypt, Beyond the Pyramids, hit the shelves. Chasing Mammon and In God's Country followed before Kennedy turned his attentions from travel writing to fiction, with a trio of thrillers increasing his stock as a writer.

More recently, The Pursuit of Happiness in 2001 was a mainstream hit which was translated into 12 languages and shortlisted for the French Prix des Letrices award. A Special Relationship and State of the Union followed into the bestseller charts and Temptation represents Kennedy's tenth book.

As an example…

"The trouble all started with a phone call. A very early morning phone call on the Wednesday after the Emmy Awards. Sally had already left the apartment for a breakfast confab with Stu Barker, and I was still deep in Never-Never Land when the phone suddenly sprang into life. As I jolted awake, one thought filled my clouded brain: a phone call at this hour is never good news."

Likelihood of becoming a Hollywood blockbuster

Considering Kennedy started life as a screenwriter and that Hollywood always likes films about Hollywood, it would be foolish to rule out the chance of Temptation making the big screen. One could see Nicholas Cage as Armitage, Jack Nicholson as Fleck and Scarlett Johansson as the stunningly beautiful, yet fame-hungry, Sally Birmingham.

The chance of that happening is remote, however, as Kennedy is all but ignored in the land of his birth. He may have sold millions worldwide, but his latest novels have failed to make it in the US, where the fact that his early work flopped has meant he has been labelled unsellable in the States. "My books are published in 17 languages, but the one country I am shut out from is my own," he recently complained in an interview with the Independent. So don't expect any real-life Philip Flecks to come a-calling soon.

What the others say

"This wry novel maps the highs and lows of the "writing life" at its most absurd. The cautionary tale of F Scott Fitzgerald's disastrous alcohol-fuelled relationship with Hollywood hovers in the background. But David Armitage is no genius: his temptations are ordinary and universal, despite the Tinsel Town setting." - Ruth Scurr, The Independent.

So is it any good?

Anyone who has read In Pursuit of Happiness or State of the Union will know what to expect when they flick open Temptation – a thoroughly good read with a healthy smattering of moralising. Boiled down, Temptation – as is Kennedy's way – is about getting what you want, losing it and then looking at your world in a completely different way with the benefit of hindsight. And it works. It is difficult not to empathise with Kennedy's characters and although the moral of the story is somewhat tired, it is the getting there that is the fun part.

Much of this book can be described as autobiographical and one senses that there is much of Kennedy in his hero. The author has experienced the anguish and bemusement of being dropped like a stone and that comes through in Armitage's dramatic fall from grace. The inside working of Tinsel Town is obviously something Kennedy dislikes greatly and there is a tinge of bitterness in his casting of Hollywood in this book. One suspects, however, that much of it is realistic and that the bitterness does not cloud Kennedy's judgment too much.

Kennedy is a master storyteller and has the ability to conjure up sumptuous settings in his novels, as he does in Temptation during Armitage's stay on Fleck's paradise isle. He deals with the frailty of human nature and the foibles of society in a way which hits home. He does not pretend to be writing a classic that will redefine modern fiction, whereas the hapless Fleck attempts to write a movie that will do exactly that, but he does what he does best – tell a cracking good story.

7/10

Martin Ashplant



"D.K. is the best 'page-turning' author I've found in years. I'm just completing my seventh...D.K's first(fictional) The Dead Heart is on order! PLEASE hurry up with the next and the one after that et al." - Gilly Lewis