The Big Picture

Rating:
Summary: American Beauty without the light at the end of the tunnel
Review: The Big Picture entertains the primal fantasy of getting away with murder, which might make it the kind of book many a prospective reader would not touch with a very long stick. It quickly becomes apparent however that this is also an existential novel up there with Albert Camus' The Outsider.

Kennedy's magic is in his creation of an Everyman who manages to fill the book with a unique aura - an admirable protagonist, Ben, through whom we experience the novel through with complete comfort and belief - as well his immense care for detail.

Photography features both as Ben's passion and a metaphor for his evolution. For in life, as well as in his photography, subjects are at their best when they are not posturing. Ben's life has been an attempt to fit a frame that has been handed to him yet his epiphany is that we are only alive when we forget about `what people might think'.

This is a personal and meaningful story that succeeds as a serious, compassionate portrayal of one man's attempt to wipe the slate clean and live the life that he would have preferred. Think American Beauty with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Rating:
Summary: The Big Picture
Review: The book, The Big Picture, is thrilling and keeps you on the edge of your seat through out. Although the main character participates in acts that are unforgivable you can not help but root for him. The story is about a man name Ben Bradford who is a Wall Street banker and lives in a nice home with his wife and two kids, but he soon realizes the hard way that money can not buy happiness. Ben learns that his wife is having an affair with a neighbor and is thinking of breaking up the family. Coming to terms with being the man he swore he would never become leads him to a confrontation with his wife's lover. The meeting between the two men turns ugly and Ben ends up murdering and stealing the identity of Gary Summers. Soon after he closes the deal by faking his own death in a boating accident using Gary's body. Ben leaves town as Gary and begins a road trip to Montana. In Mountain Falls he starts to take pictures for the local newspaper called The Montanan. He gets settled in an apartment and befriends a columnist, Rudy Warren, and the photo editor, Anne Ames, at the paper. Ben wakes up to a fire one morning while away at a cabin with Anne and is able to take pictures of the devastation that become nationally recognized. Ordinarily this is a good thing for a struggling photographer but when you are trying to keep your really identity a secret exposure is a bad thing. Rudy Warren discovers the truth about Ben's cover up and tries to black mail him. The two men are driving drunk down to the cabin when they get into a car accident and Rudy dies. Being they were in Ben's car the police figured he was driving and Gary had died. Ben takes yet another identity and confesses everything to Anne. The couple stays together, and Ben Bradford finally gets the life he always wanted.

Rating:
Summary: Well written!
Review: This story is a great example of the negative effects that our actions can have. It is very entertaining to read. I highly recomended.