Tony and Susan. By Austin Wright

Tony and Susan

Austin Wright

Atlantic Books, London. First published 1993.

There are three levels in this book, like onion skins, one within another within another. The outermost level is the story that Wright is telling me, the reader. This experience includes the physical book, with its paper and cover, the circumstances under which I read it, and so on. This is the real level, one which occurs for every book, and one over which the author has no control. The second level in this book, enclosed by the first skin, is the story of Susan, her present husband Arnold, and her previous husband Edward, who is also the author of the story at the third and innermost level. Again within this second level, Edward, has only the smallest control over the circumstances under which his manuscript is read. However he does have more control over his reader, Susan, than Wright does over his reader, me. This is because Edward knows Susan, and knows her circumstances, and sends the typewritten manuscript to her to read – the book is not published as yet.  This manuscript tells the innermost story, the story of Tony Hastings, a Professor of Maths in Pennsylvania, who takes a road trip with his wife and teenage daughter. Driving at night he is forced off the road by three, apparently casual, crooks, who then kidnap his family and rape and kill them, while Tony himself is taken elsewhere and abandoned in the woods. The rest of this innermost story deals with the aftermath, its effect on Tony, and his police-mediated encounters with the crooks in the course of the next year.

The innermost story is the most gripping and interesting of the three. Tony is convincingly portrayed as very ordinary academic, suffering, for some time at least, massive pangs of guilt for being unable to stop those vile things happening to his family. But his guilt takes him nowhere, and even when faced with a chance to get back on the crooks, he refuses to act out of character and become a hero, except almost accidentally, and ultimately, unsatisfactorily. The middle story, that of Susan, her current husband Arnold and previous husband Edward, is not so interesting. It follows a fairly predictable course with Susan becoming disillusioned with Arnold, to whom she was initially attracted almost violently, he being more accomplished, more handsome, and, it is implied, a better lover than Edward. But the disillusionment does not make Edward anymore attractive again, and Susan ends up remaining vaguely disatisfied but all the same content with her lot, hinting of future tragedies.  The weakest part of the book is the interaction between these two stories. Thus it is never clear, even at the end, just how Tony impacts on Susan, or what Edward meant to do by writing the story and sending it to Susan.

The book is arranged so that it starts with Susan recieving the manuscript. Some portions of her story are told, and then it moves into Tony's story as she starts to read it. At every chapter break in Tony's story, it comes back to Susan, moves her story along a bit, mainly as reactions to Tony, though these are unconvincing. It is written well, and I skipped only some parts, those given to the suburban frustrations of Susan. The portions involving Tony are grippingly written, and evoke terror and pity, in a true Aristotlean fashion.

I bought this book cheap (Rs 200/-) at the Oxford book store discount sale, and certainly it is worth what I paid for it, perhaps its even worth the undiscounted price.