week of 2/20/02
 
 
 

A fast-paced thriller
Loose ends compromise an otherwise gripping psychological novel
By Gary Carden
Maybe if I had loved her less, there would have been no murder. Maybe if there had been less devotion in the love. Plenty of men have happy marriages. Affection, partnership, earnest conversations, shared pursuits. If they begin with any blinding passion it fades in time. Their minds get sharp again. Maybe if I hadn’t adored her so I would’ve seen more clearly. Maybe if I had seen more clearly no one would have died.

— Man and Wife, page 1

Man and Wife by Andrew Klavan.
New York: Tom Doherty Associates Press, 2001. $24.95 — 302 pp.


This “novel of psychological suspense” certainly manages to get your attention immediately. In the first 30 pages, a church burns and the reader learns that the arsonist, an unstable (and mysterious) young man named Peter Blue, has attacked his lover only moments before the fire, stolen a gun, threatened the local sheriff and attempted suicide. The narrator of the story, Cal Bailey, a successful psychiatrist who agrees to take the arsonist on as a client, tells us that these violent acts are merely the superficial details, a kind of random spin-off of a fateful chain of events; he suggests a kind of ominous progression, like falling dominos — things are moving toward certain tragedy, and our psychiatrist has carefully recorded the consequences. He also confides that he has some personal problems and a growing sense that something is peculiar about his wife’s (Marie’s) background (or lack of it).

As the two worlds merge, (Marie’s past and Peter Blue’s therapy) Cal changes roles, moving from detached analyst to unwilling participant. His diary — half confession, half report — is the motor that propels this novel, giving it that cliched quality that reviewers like to call “a real page-turner.”

I’ve always had a weakness for fiction that utilizes first-person narration — especially in those noir novels like Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me or James Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. As a reader, I feel “privileged,” as though the author had selected me to listen to his personal confession of warped love, madness and betrayal. In essence, this relationship is endorsed by Cal Bailey, who listens each day to clients who give him the status of a priest in a confessional. However, in Man and Wife, patients confess to the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist confesses to us. Further, Cal doesn’t plead “doctor-patient confidentiality,” or ask that the reader refrain from revealing the details of his story. By the time you finish reading his diary (this novel), it will be too late (says Cal) to make a difference.

Initially, the narrator of Man and Wife appears to be blessed with a perfect family (two beautiful children and a devoted, nurturing and sensual wife). In addition, he is a noted psychiatrist with a thriving practice and the respect of the community. The richness of his life makes Cal a little anxious. At times, he feels that he doesn’t deserve it. Why him? His troubled sister had committed suicide seven years prior to Cal’s meeting with Peter Blue, and the lives of his co-workers and neighbors are fraught with disaster: alcoholism, mental illness and the random blows of fate seem to have touched everyone — except Cal. Well, that is about to change.

As part of Peter Blue’s therapy, he is encouraged to describe recurring dreams. One is a mystical encounter with a “divine presence” on the top of a wooded hill near a stone altar. Below the hill is a spectacular waterfall. Cal is troubled by the dream because he recognizes the setting. The place is part of a hiking trail near Cal’s office. It is also the place where Cal’s sister used to have her sexual rendezvous ... and it is the place where Cal recently saw Marie with a strange man. To further complicate matters, Peter Blue is suspected of additional criminal activities. When he escapes from the therapy center, a series of disasters result, including blackmail, suicide and murder.

The greatest appeal of Man and Wife is the masterful development of suspense and the artful manner in which the author takes a dozen incidents which appear to be unrelated and slowly, teasingly arranges them into a unified whole. The plot of this novel resembles a jigsaw puzzle, and lo, when the final piece snaps into place, everything merges into an (almost) harmonious whole.

This is the type of book that readers read straight through, pausing only for food and biological functions. However, although the final resolutions are satisfying, I had some problems with the slickness of the final resolution. In essence, some of those jigsaw pieces may have been hammered into place, and if the reader looks closely, a few pieces have irregular shapes and don’t fit.

The mystical elements in Man and Wife seem out of place in a narrative that is otherwise heavily realistic. Also, after finishing this novel, I realized that the little “mystical echoes” which suggest an eerie similarity between Peter and Cal’s dead sister were “red herrings” that served no purpose. Much of the action centers around an aggressive, unstable sheriff who lacks credibility (in the movie, he would be portrayed by Joe Don Baker). Finally, all of the portentous warnings of dire tragedy to come aren’t realized. Certainly the ending is tragic, but it isn’t the heart-rending disaster that our narrator has been predicting for 200 pages.

Man and Wife is a fast-paced and suspenseful novel. However, a few plot elements could have used a bit of “honing.” Like Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” they may have been sent into the world before their time, “scarce half made up,” and trailing redundant (but fascinating) details.

(Gary Carden is a writer, storyteller and lecturer whose book, Mason Jars in the Flood, was recently named Book of the Year by the Appalachian Writers Association. He can be reached at gcarden498@aol.com.)