I didn't like this book. I really didn't like this book. But I couldn't stop reading it.

I read the first chapter, and thought "this is not my cup of tea". I read another chapter, and thought I can dtop reading it at any time. I don't have to plough my way through it. But I read another chapter anyway.

I don't like this book. I don't like the characters, or the clothes they wear. They are the wrong generation, my parents generation. But still I read. Why? It's 1960, the election campaign in which Kennedy was elected, the first American election I can really remember. I remember wishing that Kennedy would win, because Kennedy was a Roman Catholic and back then I was a High Church Anglican, and High Church Anglicans were second-class Catholics. Kennedy would bring morality and Christian values to American politics, world politics, or so I thought. The Cuban missile crisis put me right on that score. American hypocrisy, and the thought that Krushchev had saved the world from a nuclear holocaust.

1960 was also the year I first heard the name of Jack Kerouac, the year I read The Dharma bums. Jack Kerouac is the same generation as these people, but what a world of difference.

But still I read it, until I eventually reached the end. I think it is well written, but it recalled to me people of my parents' generation, with their business suits and ties and hats and women with hats and gloves and lipstick and high-heeled shoes and well-stocked drinks cabinets. When people visited you had, at the very least, to offer them a choice of brandy, whisky, beer and gin. People of that class did not offer skokiaan and Barberton.

And Faulks describes it all, in excuciating detail -- the clink of ice in glasses, the martinis, the clothes, and all the rest.

No, it is not my kind of book, and these are not my kind of people.

Faulks is even self-mocking, having characters rather disparagingly referring to novels about suburban adultery, like Peyton Place, in the middle of his own novel about suburban adultery.

I didn't like this book, but I read it.

This was the first Faulks book I've read, although I know we have the French trilogy. The writing was gorgeous, which is good, because it wasn't the greatest story ever. It's about a British diplomat's wife who has an affair while living with her husband in Washington DC. I did like the depictions of the emotions involved in infidelity. She loves her--(Non sequitor: Hey, there's no male word for mistress, is there? That's weird, there should be. Mister? Master? Neither of those are right. It's like how there's no satisfying female equivalent of 'guy'.) Anyway, she loves Frank, the guy she's having an affair with, but she never stops loving her husband, who is an alcoholic undergoing a nervous breakdown and professional difficulties. When she is with her family, she feels like standing by them is the most important thing, but when she's with Frank, she feels like she can leave them behind for him. We get some chapters from Frank's perspective--he knows and likes the husband, and the husband's perspective, as he goes from ignorance to suspicion to certainty about the affair. I just thought it was a fairly honest portrayal of all emotions involved in infidelity--absolutely nothing is black and white.

Set in 1960, this all unfolds against the backdrop of Nixon and Kennedy's presidential campaigns and the cold war.

Charlie van der Linden, wife Mary & 2 children are from Great Britain assigned to the Washington, D.C. embassy. Charlie has a serious drinking problem which is mostly overlooked at work and parties because he is an "up and comer" doing some really good work. Mary is the good embassy wife giving parties and performing her other duties. It is the Eisenhower era with Americans enjoying jazz, big cars, the good life while McCarthy is on the lookout for Communists everywhere. Frank Renzo is a journalist being punished by relegation to minor stories since he wrote an article critical of McCarthy. One fateful night Frank appears at one of the embassy parties. It seems that he & Charlie were in Dien Bien Phu when the French were defeated. I'll not give anything away. This is a character driven story told against the historical background of the time.

Loved every minute of it

An intense romance backed by historical events. After Birdsong and Charlotte Grey which could be described as historical events backed by intense romances, this was unexpected even though the back cover did explain that this novel was a new departure for Faulks.

Did not disappoint although I found it did not flow smoothly in places - much as with A Week in December. Nevertheless definitely compulsive reading as it drew to a close and apart from the romance, an effective depiction of the political environment and events experienced by the "Greatest (or GI Joe) Generation".

I have not read enough of Faulks to compare this sufficiently with his other novels but, of those I have, Birdsong I still find as his outstanding achievement.

Interesting period piece about a woman caught between passion and duty. Writing is fair and it takes on too many characters, but enjoyed the period details and the central conflict.

This is a beautifully written book exploring how conflicting responsibilities to self and others are sometimes irreconcilable. Mary is the wife of a British diplomat in Washington inhabiting the febrile atmosphere of the capital city during the election campaign of Kennedy versus Nixon as America ends the 1950’s. Her brilliant but fragile husband has an almost child-like dependence on her as he struggles with personal demons. Her young children are unhappy at school in England and her mother is dying in London, but Mary has a curious sense of belonging in America and even contentment with her life despite the threats on all sides. An unexpected and uninvited affair adds light and lustre to Mary’s life but presents her with agonising dilemmas as her responsibilities for everyone else in her life build inexorably.

Time and place are described with total authenticity and the swirling events of the period add complex colour to the narrative. The characters inhabit lives which we all recognise not for their detail but for the very real dilemmas that they confront.

After reading On Green Dolphin Street. I committed to read everything Sebastian Faulks has ever written. It was THAT good.

I'm not so sure it was the story itself as much as the atmosphere and time period it evoked. It did that so well. I was just a kid when the Kennedy/Nixon campaign for president took place, but I was surprised how much this book made me remember. Also, the overlooked aspect of that race was the lingering effects of WWII and the McCarthy era on the outcome.

To be truthful, I'm not overly fond of stories where a wife cheats on her husband (or vice versa.) But, I got the impression that Mary really did need to be with Frank, not Charlie. And vice versa. I thought this topic was handled well by Faulks and the ultimate ending appropriate too.

Now, I'm reading Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War. It has the same "why did I start reading this" beginning until at some point, I'm so sucked in I can't put it down. Excellent writing!

Good atmosphere of 50's/60's but very 'restrained' - English - also very sad.

The writing was superb, the characterisation was excellent. The backdrop story was the contest between Nixon and Kennedy for the presidency, and the war in Indochina, both of which were enlightening. The main story concerned the highs and lows of an affair and the emotional ties of family and marriage. The main characters were all likable, though throughout was the sense that there could not be a happy ending for them all.

I loved this book; didn't want it to end. I was so sucked into Mary & Frank's romance.

Set during the election campaign of Nixon / JFK we meet Mary, wife of Charlie, and Frank. Frank is a newspaper reporter and Mary and Charlie are part of the British diplomatic service based in Washington DC.

Mary and Frank meet at a party at Mary and Charlie's house. Charlie is inebriated, and is for most of the book. Mary, on a trip to NYC without Charlie, finds herself in contact with Frank and the rest, as they say, is history.
Interspersed with historical references, this is the account of an extramarital affair. It isn't especially graphic in detail; the affair is strongly suggested.

Some reviews suggest it's a slow story but for me it set a good pace and it was one of those books I kept wanting to read and wanting more of.

I am a big fan of Sebastian Faulks, and I think this may be his finest effort to date. Like all his novels, this one is first and foremost an old-fashioned love story. As in Birdsong, this novel seamlessly weaves the personal and very intimate story of an accidental affair into a larger milieu of fairly grand (but always understated) significance. Indeed, it's impossible to imagine this story occuring in any other time, or any other way. The story alternates between Washington, DC and New York City in 1960s, and Faulks evokes the background political and social drama of the period, creating a perfect backdrop for the inner drama of his characters. Whether because I knew the physical setting so well (having lived in both cities), or because I came to know the characters so well, once begun I couldn't put the book down. Faulks tells this story masterfully.