Escape into Fiction

I escaped into fiction over the weekend and it was lovely, so relaxing. It rarely happens these days but I always enjoy it when it does. What was it that captured my attention away from the computer and my children and husband and the sun shining outside?

I read Douglas Kennedy’s book A Pursuit of Happiness’. At over 600 pages it’s no quick read but I find his style so engaging that I just had to finish it yesterday after starting it on Saturday cooking, ironing? Sorry? No time for any of that.

What I enjoyed about this book (and what I like about any good believable fiction) was the places that it took me. On Saturday I was in modern day New York before leaping back to the post WW2 period for a tumultuous romance and the complications of the Macarthy era.

Sara meets Jack Malone on Thanksgiving Eve and falls hopelessly in love but this is followed by heartache because he is setting sail for Europe the following morning for nine months. Their chance meeting sets off a whole series of events that touch the lives of many people.

One of the things I like about being able to completely immerse myself in someone’s life like that is that its like I’m living it, like I’m the one who has been swept off her feet by a charming Brooklyn mick, the one who makes unwise decisions in the wake of the grief at not hearing from him despite sending many letters, the joy at watching a career unfold with ease, the pain of a miscarriage its about living a life I could never have and getting all the emotional highs and lows without the raw pain associated with actually experiencing it myself. In a way I find it cathartic for any emotional skeletons I may have lurking in the basement of my mind. I get to take them out, air them, and tuck them back away again, hopefully in better shape than before if the author has done their job properly and I’ve been thoroughly immersed in the story.

My imagination can play out what if’ and I find it a wonderful escape from the normal day to day. Better to get some drama on the page than have it play out in my own life (spending ten hours solid reading a book was disrupting enough!).