IN A FAR COUNTRY

by Adam Kennedy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 11, 1982

When not writing thrillers like The Domino Principle and Debt of Honor, Kennedy writes semi-serious soaps--and this one, despite some literary texture that's initially engaging, soon meanders its talky way into one of B-filmdom's hoariest standbys: the hopeless romance between Rich Girl and Poor Boy. The Rich Girl is Lake Forest's gorgeous Christine Wheatley--daughter of lonely divorcee Grace (still mourning her doomed love for writer Russell Atha), granddaughter of imperious, class-conscious Margaret, and fiancÉe of perfect childhood-sweetheart Fred Deets. The Poor Boy is Roy Lavidge--a track-running scholarship student from Maine, a virtual orphan. But when Christine and Roy both take summer jobs on Martha's Vineyard in 1969, they fall into utter, mismatched Love. Christine dumps Fred (to Margaret's horror). Roy transfers to an Illinois college, then injures his knee--endangering his scholarship. And when Roy loses his student deferment, Christine follows him to Canada for early-1970s draft evasion--where, befriended by hotel-keepers Abe and Annie, they muddle through some ups and downs. . . until mother Grace (in one of the novel's several blips of tinny melodrama) loses her arm in a car accident: Christine has a miscarriage, now decides ""you can't divorce yourself from what you've always been,"" and immediately marries good old Fred. Meanwhile, then, Roy pairs off in New Zealand with older, wiser Annie--now widowed and childless, since Abe (revealed as an IRA guerrilla) has gotten himself and his kids killed on an IRA mission. And finally, though Christine (whom many readers will feel like throttling) goes to New Zealand to try to get Roy back again, he sleeps with her but turns her down. . . with those oh-so-familiar lines: ""I need a small life. One I can handle. I'm a plain guy, honey. . . ."" True, Kennedy tries, somewhat successfully, to frame the romance with intimations of Fate and such: flashbacks to Grace's similarly ill-fated affair (she must give up lover Russell to keep custody of baby Christine); the characters' assorted exiles; the violent interferences from Vietnam and Ireland. And there's some attempted trickiness in the narration: a writer-friend is working from notes taken by terminally ill Russell Atha, who came to know Christine and Roy (yet never re-teamed with Grace). But none of the trappings can disguise the scenario's essential pulpiness; as in previous Kennedy romances, the characters remain strangely faceless and unsympathetic despite the extensive (sometimes classy) verbiage. And neither pop-romance fans nor more serious readers will be steadily engaged by this literate, mostly pleasant, yet thin and aimless hybrid.

Pub Date: Jan. 11, 1982

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1982

Categories: FICTION