Douglas Kennedy

Douglas Kennedy (born January 1, 1955) is an American novelist. He is known for international bestsellers The Big Picture, The Pursuit of Happiness, Leaving the World and The Moment. Douglas Kennedy was born in New York City in 1955, the son of a commodities broker and a production assistant at NBC. He was educated at The Collegiate School and graduated with a B.A. magna cum laude from Bowdoin College in 1976. He also spent a year studying at Trinity College Dublin. "I was a history major," Kennedy explained. "Retrospectively, I think the history major provides much better training for a novelist. So much of what I do in my own fiction is observational; is looking at behavior. By studying human history you really see how human folly endlessly repeats itself. In my work—in whatever form it takes—I am very much grappling with what it means to be American in this way."

Kennedy married Grace Patricia Carley in 20 April 1985. He has two children, Max and Amelia. The couple divorced in 2009. In 2012, Kennedy married Christine Ury. They divorced in 2017.