The classic romance novel that inspired the Hollywood film starring Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas, written by the acclaimed novelist Warren Adler, well-known for his iconic novel turned international box-office hit ‘The War of the Roses.’ Soon to be a Stage Play...
Note: Watching the trailer, I quickly decided I preferred the book...
The aircraft fell in line behind a number of others. Outside, the snow continued to fall and swirl about, sometimes completely obscuring visibility through the windows. Leaning over him, she looked out. “Are we really going to take off?” “They know what they’re doing,” Orson said. A plane’s roar split the air. “Listen to that. We’ll be in the sunshine two minutes after takeoff.”
“When I’m with you, there’s always sunshine,” she said, caressing him. The plane’s speaker crackled. “The flight tower has given us the go-ahead, folks. Sunny Florida, here we come.”
The pilot’s voice was followed by that of the stewardess reminding them to fasten their safety belts and put the seats in an upright position. They obeyed the instructions, although they kept the blanket over them. “I wouldn’t care if we just kept on flying to the end of the world, forever,” Lily said, entwining her fingers in his.
“That won’t solve anything. We’d have to land someday,” he said, lifting her fingers to his lips and kissing them. The aircraft lumbered forward and began to accelerate. Some loose baggage bumped in the overhead racks. The great jets roared, and the plane’s body quivered as it charged ahead, flattening them against the seat backs. For an inordinately long time, the plane did not lift.
“Hard getting this baby off the ground,” someone said behind them. Orson felt Lily’s fingers squeeze harder as their bodies waited to sense the lift-off. When it happened, her fingers unclasped, and Orson looked out the window into the mass of white.
Lily leaned over him. “Soon,” he whispered. She lifted the rose to her nostrils and breathed in its delicate scent. Then the plane began to buck and lose altitude. It became deadly quiet; the sudden terror had paralyzed everyone into silence.
Even when the big plane sheared a railing off the Fourteenth Street Bridge along with the tops of five cars, there were no screams. Then the plane crashed through the ice with an enormous impact.
~~~
Random Hearts
By Warren Adler
I don't know of anybody better than Warren Adler to write on the human condition... Taking things, events, situations that happen routinely in America, he will take readers deeper into his characters, revealing the most intimate of emotions, internal thoughts, or physical actions, daring us to differ in opinion from what he sees as our reality, our lives, living together...
Even as I read, I reveled, knowing, almost immediately, each single event that was going to happen, including the ending. However, that did not prepare me for the "experience" of coming to know each of the individuals I would be meeting in the novel.
Almost immediately, two of the characters are killed in an airplane crash. With the brief introduction, we know that they are very much in love and looking forward to a brief getaway. They leave two spouses behind, not telling anybody where they were going. And they flew under aliases. They were lovers, having an affair... They loved their spouses...but...
And then the mystery begins...
I enjoyed the police officer who was assigned to the task of working with the victims of the crash. When the first body, a female, was found and had to be called a Jane Doe, due to lack of identification, he was somewhat relieved to break the chain of body review and relative notification... Finally, all bodies were recovered. A man was identified by his credentials...who was not scheduled on the flight...
Edward Davis knew his wife was to be out of town for 4 days. Vivien was a homemaker and mother and she and her son said goodbye to her husband as he was leaving for 4 days... As we read about their departure, readers begin to see questions about their relationship; i.e., the relationship between spouses. A good word as we read could be called...content...
So when their spouses were expected home, both Edward and Vivien began to worry. They had heard about the plane crash, but it had been headed for a destination that neither of their spouses was headed... They thought...
We watch as news finally reaches them; they are devastated. Sergeant McCarthy made a decision, which I supported, and brought those two people into a private room to tell them that their spouses were not named earlier because they were traveling under another name and that they had been together...
But answers were needed! And if nobody had known where their spouses were, then they bonded together to find out! How would you feel in this situation? All of the emotional restraints that had been held, sometimes on small things, but now, faced with betrayal, started being considered and pulled out by both Edward and Vivien. Each piece of information was shared...as each raged and vented their own emotions... Nobody else could understand...
Adler's sensitivity, his awareness, his ability to realistically create the overwhelming emotions involved--from each character--is exceptional. There is little doubt that readers will grasp the emotional impact of what is happening to the two remaining spouses. And the key to that readers response is Adler's unbelievable, created understanding of what happened, what the individuals were thinking, what the individuals wanted--revenge, and provided that turmoil for us to feel, to empathize, perhaps, but to also sympathize, with all of those individuals who shared this story...a secret story that the world would never know about, yet see the results...
I loved the ending and the moral to the story... I also loved that both Edward and Vivien were included in the emotionally wrought story so that both sexes were emphasized in this, a situation that exists in the human condition of interpersonal relationships... I think this just might be my last "Personal favorite for 2018!" Loved it!
GABixlerReviews
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