Book Summary and Reviews of Lucky Night by Eliza Kennedy

Book Summary

A masterful novel—blistering in suspense and humor—about marriage, infidelity, love, and a blazing hotel room.

Nick Holloway is forty-six. A successful partner at a law firm, he has a gorgeous wife, a precious daughter, and a big house. If he also has gnawing disappointments, secret yearnings, and a creeping sense of opportunities wasted, well, that's nobody's fault but his own.

Jenny Parrish is forty. She has two lovely sons, a devoted if somewhat hapless husband, and recently is hugely successful in her dream vocation. It's a perfect life! So perfect, she can't help but wonder sometimes whether it's all going to come crashing down.

For the past six years, Nick and Jenny have been meeting at least once a month and having sex. Lots of sex. Great sex. They do not discuss their spouses, they never spend the night, and they never ever talk about what their relationship means. Because this thing they have? It's casual. Uncomplicated.

When Nick books a night at a fancy new hotel, the two decide to break one of their rules and spend the whole night together. It's business as usual—until a fire alarm goes off. At first they think it's a false alarm. But as the fire closes in, fear strips away their defenses and justifications, forcing Jenny and Nick to be honest, with each other and with themselves, about how they ended up in this room, and what these six years have really meant.

A meditation on whether it's possible to live an authentic life, and whether we can ever show our true selves, Eliza Kennedy's Lucky Night is a literary triumph.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Why is Jenny faking it an issue? Why does Nick obsess over it? And do you believe her when she tells him the "truth?"
2. What is the state of their relationship at the start of the novel? How do they each present themselves to the other in a way that's different from who they "really" are?
3. Why doesn't Jenny listen to her gut about leaving? Why does she feel so conflicted?
4. What does the fire alarm actually trigger between the couple?
5. How well do Nick and Jenny really know each other at the beginning of the novel? What about at the end? Do you agree with Nick that there's a sense in which none of us really knows anyone else?
6. What did you think of the style of writing? How does the lack of quotation marks ...