Introduction

From the critically lauded, internationally bestselling author of The Moment comes a profoundly moving novel that explores how a single brief encounter can change one’s life.

Laura spends her days looking at other people’s potential calamities. She works in the radiography unit of a small hospital on the Maine coast, bearing constant witness to the fears of patient after frightened patient. In a job where finding nothing is always the best possible outcome, she is well versed in the random injustices of life, a truism that has lately been playing out in her marriage as well. Since being downsized, her husband, Dan, has become withdrawn, his emotional distance gradually corroding their relationship. With a son in college and a daughter soon due to leave home, Laura has begun to fear that the marital sounds of silence will only deepen once the nest is truly empty.

When an opportunity arises to attend a weekend medical conference in Boston, Laura jumps at this respite from home. While checking in, she meets a man as gray and uninspired as her drab hotel room. Richard is an outwardly dull, fiftysomething insurance salesman. But during a chance second encounter, Laura discovers him to be surprisingly complex and thoughtful, someone who, like herself, is grappling with the same big questions about decisions made and the human capacity for self-entrapment. As their conversation deepens and begins to veer into shared confessions, the overwhelming sense of personal and intimate connection arises. A transformative love affair begins. But can this potential, much-longed-for happiness be married to their own difficult personal circumstances? Can they upend their lives and embrace that most loaded of words: change?

A love story as clear-sighted and ruminative as it is affecting, Five Days will have you reflecting about the choices we all make that shape our destinies. Crafted with Kennedy’s trademark evocative prose and pitch-perfect in its depiction of the complex realities of modern life, it is a novel that speaks directly to the many contradictions of the human heart.

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Excerpt

ONE

I SAW THE CANCER immediately. It was right there in front of me. As always, I found myself taking a sharp intake of breath as the realization hit: I am looking at the beginning of the end.

The cancer was shaped like a dandelion. Sometimes this sort of tumor looks like a cheap Christmas decoration—a five-and-dime star with ragged edges. But this specific one was more like a minor-looking flower that had been denuded, stripped down to its seeds, but with an insidious, needle-like structure. What radiologists call a “spiculated structure.” ... view entire excerpt...

Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think Douglas Kennedy wrote Laura’s story as it happens in just five days? How would the novel be different if it weren’t limited to this time frame? What does it gain by the limitation?

2. Laura and Lucy “both read to find windows into our own dilemmas” ( page 49). Do you choose books for the same reason? What book has recently spoken to you the most? Why?

3. How do Laura’s, Dan’s, and Richard’s relationships with their parents affect their lives? Their marriages? Does it change how they parent their own children?

4. Though there were problems already, Laura and Dan’s marriage went downhill when he lost his job. How does this financial pressure change their relationship? If Dan hadn’t been laid off, do you think they would have stayed married?

5. “That’s been one of the unwritten rules of our friendship: we tell each other everything we want to share. We ask advice and give it reciprocally. But we stop short of saying what we really feel about the other’s stuff” ( page 50). Do you think this is a good “rule” for friends to have? What would you have said to Laura if you were Lucy?

6. Is adultery really a betrayal of trust—or, in the case of Laura, a necessary way for her to begin to confront the empty sadness of her marriage?

7. Why wouldn’t Five Days be the same story if it were told from Richard’s point of view? Does Douglas Kennedy accurately capture the voice of Laura?

8. Both Richard and Laura spent most of their lives in Maine, in small towns with lots of gossip and not much financial opportunity. Could these characters come from any small town, spending a weekend in any big city? Why, or why not?

9. Ben and Billy seem to relate best to one parent. Is this always the case in family life?

10. Laura and Richard both dwell on what direction their lives might have taken if only Eric hadn’t died or Richard had left with Sarah. What is your “possible” life story?

11. Ben, Sally, Billy, and even Laura are in some ways defined by their first relationships. How does this theme play an important part of the novel?

12. Were you surprised by the outcome of Laura and Richard’s affair?

Weblinks

»	Read chapter Two
»	Author Douglas Kennedy's web site
»	Publisher's Book Info
»	Follow Douglas Kennedy on Facebook
»	Follow Douglas Kennedy on Twitter

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