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Title: The Unwitting

Author: Ellen Feldman

Narrator: Laurel Lefkow

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-01-14

Publisher: Isis Publishing Ltd

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

Betrayal comes in many forms.... At the height of the Cold War, words are weapons and secrecy reigns. These are challenging times to be a writer and a wife, as Nell Benjamin knows only too well.

One bright November day in 1963, the dazzling young president arrives in Texas and Nell receives a phonecall that overturns the world as she knows it. In the shocking aftermath, whilst America mourns, Nell must come to terms with both a tragedy and a betrayal that shatters every illusion of the man she thought she knew better than anyone else. Resonant, illuminating and utterly absorbing, The Unwitting is about the lies we tell, the secrets we keep, and the power of both truth and love.

Members Reviews:

A three star effort.

Whereas the reflection of the political machinations of the early sixties is interesting, and the characters are fairly well drawn, the language is banal and the writing amateurish. I highlighted some sentences as I read that would have made my high school English teacher tear his hair out. Page 193: "In the silence of the empty apartment, my loneliness bumped against the high ceilings like an untethered helium balloon". Ouch.

So what is literary fiction? Worthy of discussion, but it's not this book.

Starts VERY slowly..

I liked this book in the end as it aptly describes the time between WWII and the mid Sixties through the eyes of people in the literary world. You can see and feel their youthful zeal for printing he truth while trying to navigate in a social/emotional works so different from their parents'. But, man, the first 100 pages are tedious. The setup for the rest of the novel could be achieved in twenty. Luckily, it is light reading so you can zoom through it. I almost just put the book away but in the end, was glad I didn't, just barely.

The Unwitting

While I did not understand everything or every emotion in this book, it drew me in and I found it hard to put down. The title, The Unwitting, refers to those who are not aware of what is really going on! It is a story of a marriage of idealists, the story also of their lives outside their marriage, and how that affects their life together. Very good!

Would Recommend But...

I wish it went a little deeper. Well written and brought some interesting things to light regarding journalism during this time period but I felt as though some of perspectives of the other characters were more in depth.

Informative and Entertaining

Characters are real and the reader feels a closeness to them, understanding their actions even though at first some are surprising. Provides insight to the link between politics and the literary world during the 50's and 60's.