The Suicide's Wife by David Madden

First published: 1978

Type of plot: Tragic realism

Time of work: 1968, from the time of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination to Robert Kennedy’s assassination

Locale: The fictitious university town of San Francisco, West Virginia

Principal Characters:

• Ann Harrington, the protagonist, a housewife and the mother of three small children; the suicide’s wife
• Mark Harrington, her sensitive eleven-year-old son
• Max Crane, a poet and former colleague of her husband, Wayne Harrington

The Novel

The Suicide’s Wife takes place in the fictitious university town of San Francisco, West Virginia. Ann Harrington, the protagonist, feels that this San Francisco is not the real San Francisco and that she is as fraudulent as is this counterfeit town. Indeed, much of the action of the novel takes place in Ann’s tortured, lethargic mind rather than in the town proper.

Ann returns with Wayne, her English-professor husband, to his vacant family home in upstate New York for a nostalgic last look before it is sold. Tragedy strikes early the next day when Wayne disappears. Ann is sure that she has been abandoned and returns home alone. A few days later, her sister-in-law calls to tell her that she found Wayne sitting on the lawn in his favorite childhood spot, dead from a bullet to his head.

Wayne’s death shakes Ann out of her complacent, ineffectual existence and forces her to reevaluate her life and redefine her reality. Through no choice of her own, Ann is thrust into an alien world where she is immediately branded with two distasteful labels: “widow” and “the suicide’s wife.”

Ill-prepared to take control of her life (she cannot even drive a car), Ann retreats into her own private world, where she is haunted by perverse sexual images and by her father’s all-knowing admonitions. Her father, a drunken, abusive man, was stomped to death in an alley the year that she married Wayne.

Reared in a tough Polish ghetto in Pittsburgh, Ann did not end up in prison, as all her brothers did, but, just as tragically, she lost her persona at a very young age. When Ann was twelve years old, she relinquished her body to a gang of neighborhood boys. Never fully recovering from this traumatic incident, Ann finally felt important when she married her English professor and bore him three children.

To still the persistent voices and memories from her past and to avoid the probing questions and pitying glances from those in her present, Ann channels all of her energies into her home. She doggedly determines to get the house running efficiently. Since the house has not been properly cared for, there is much for Ann to do. In the midst of tragedy, Ann fixes the toilet, repairs the roof, tends to the washing machine, and, in fact, gets her house in working order. Unfortunately, Ann forgets to mend her family’s emotional house.

Ann is gradually drawn into the real world by friends and neighbors who express genuine concern for her. As condolences continue to pour in, Ann’s hunger and curiosity about her husband’s life intensifies. She is besieged by feelings of guilt for not sensing her husband’s deep depression. As she begins to probe into Wayne’s life at the university, she uncovers some rather unsettling truths.

Wayne had not been respected by either his colleagues or his students, who regarded him as extremely boring and absolutely talentless. Although faculty members referred to him as a “sweet” man, none of them actually associated with him. Ann begins to realize that Wayne was as much a failure as she is.

Max Crane, a poet and a former colleague of Wayne, plays a critical role in Ann’s growth and maturation. He forces Ann to confront her feelings about herself, her past, and her marriage to Wayne. He also poses the startling possibility that Anson Keller, a former student, may have been Wayne’s lover and directly or indirectly responsible for Wayne’s death.

Ann proceeds to look for evidence supporting or refuting these allegations, but the search is inconclusive. Astonished by how little she knew of her husband’s life, she moves forward with renewed strength and determination. The turning point in the story comes when Ann and her son Mark venture out into the world after months of isolation. Soon after the two of them join a group of friends at the beach, Mark disappears. Ann’s friends comb the waters for Mark, but to no avail. Terrified and hysterical, Ann keeps from gagging by putting her hand over her mouth. As the search continues, Ann glances around and sees Mark sitting on the hood of her car in the parking lot.

Ann loses the “good girl” self-control that she always exhibits and explodes violently at Mark. She hits him uncontrollably and vents all the emotions and feelings that she has suppressed through the years. Purged of the venom at last, Ann is finally capable of facing herself and those around her honestly and openly.

The Characters

Ann Harrington epitomizes the preemancipated woman, completely dependent on her husband. Had Wayne not died, this very ordinary woman would probably have remained trapped in her husband’s shadow. Ironically, Wayne’s “eminence” was merely a construct of Ann’s—he was as empty a shell as she.

Madden conveys Ann’s deep feelings of worthlessness by detailing a grueling childhood incident during which Ann submitted sexually to a gang of boys. Ann’s apparent lack of shame reveals her well-developed defense mechanism. Madden implies that by cutting off and denying her true feelings, Ann has been able to minimize the painful experiences in her life.

Madden allows the reader to witness, partake, and rejoice in Ann’s growth. The scenes in the driver’s examination office are unforgettably written, sparse, yet vividly descriptive; the reader shares Ann’s intense determination to pass her driver’s test.

After teaching herself to drive in Wayne’s battered old car, Ann feels confident enough to take the test. Unfortunately, she is tested by an arrogant, ignorant, sexist police officer who barks impossible orders at her. After her fourth attempt, the officer directs her to a secluded dirt road and tries to blackmail her into performing a sexual act. Her refusal to succumb to him marks a real breakthrough for Ann. She is no longer willing to use her body to attain what she wants. When she does pass the test, it is on her own terms, and the victory belongs not only to Ann but also to everyone who has ever been intimidated and exploited by someone with power and authority.

Mark Harrington is a sensitive, imaginative child who may be more like his mother than either of them realizes. When his father dies, Mark retreats into a private world of his own creation. Neglected by Ann, who is caught up in her own misery, Mark begins to write his father’s biography. This, however, is no ordinary biography: Mark invents a wonderful life for his father—one in which Wayne takes on heroic proportions. Mark’s fanciful story ironically excludes Ann. Indeed, Mark is openly hostile and antagonistic to Ann. His mother has been so preoccupied with her own problems that when he flunks the sixth grade, she is totally unprepared.

Mark’s secretive and strange behavior escalates as the story progresses, culminating in a near tragedy when he disappears from Ann at the beach. For the first time since Wayne’s death, Ann responds emotionally to Mark, and at last, he is able to express his feelings to her.

One of the most unusual characters in The Suicide’s Wife is Max Crane. At first blush, Max appears to be the antithesis of Wayne. He is a good-looking, witty, successful poet who is popular with both his colleagues and his students. That he is a bit of a scoundrel and womanizer only adds to his mystique and charm.

Yet, as the reader learns, Max was inexplicably drawn to Wayne. At first, Max simply enjoyed feeling superior to the man whom the students branded “the most boring man on the face of the earth.” Later, however, Max realized that the attraction was more complex. Wayne was the flip side of Max; Wayne’s body image enhanced the image that Max had of his own body. Max became acutely aware, through Wayne, of the way other people affected him, physically and psychologically, and the way that he affected those around him. After Wayne’s death, Max became fixated on the sound of his own heart—and on the fact that Wayne’s heart no longer made any sound.

Max’s attraction to Ann is based on his perverse interest in Wayne; through her, Max can continue to probe and analyze his alter ego. Nevertheless, Max plays a critical role in Ann’s development and growth. Through Max, Ann discovers that she is ignorant not only about her husband’s life, but also about her own life. Max’s presence allows her to confront the ghosts from her past and face the truth about her present reality.

Critical Context

As noted above, it is significant that The Suicide’s Wife takes place in 1968, one of the most turbulent years in American history. The story goes full circle—it opens with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and ends with the assassination of Robert Kennedy. In between, the reader witnesses national rioting, student protests (in the United States and abroad), and antiwar demonstrations: “National events came at [Ann] like blows, made her flinch.”

Television brought the tragic events of the day into everyone’s living room. Not untouched by these catastrophic events, Ann also must cope with personal tragedies that affect her life directly: her husband’s suicide, Mark’s friend’s sudden death, the collapse of the bridge connecting West Virginia with Ohio plunging cars, trucks, and a school bus deep into the Ohio River. In the midst of all this suffering and loss, Ann begins to realize that she can change her life; she is not doomed to a lifetime of failures.

The Suicide’s Wife received mixed reviews from the critics. Some compared the novel favorably to Jean-Paul Sartre’s masterpiece Nausea (1938), while others criticized it for being thin and laconic. Ann Harrington is obviously a character about whom Madden felt very deeply; the reader, too, is invited to share in her consciousness to an extraordinary degree.

Bibliography

Crowder, A. B. Writing in the Southern Tradition: Interviews with Five Contemporary Authors. Atlanta, Ga.: Rodopi, 1990. Includes an interview with David Madden.

Madden, David. “Interview with David Madden: On Technique in Fiction.” Interview by Jeffrey J. Folks. The Southern Quarterly 25 (Winter, 1987). Madden discusses his writing strategies.

Madden, David. “A Personal View: The Real Life’ Fallacy.” In The American Writer and the University, edited by Ben Siegel. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1989. Interesting commentary by Madden on his views of writing.

Perrault, Anna H. “A David Madden Bibliography: 1952-1981” Bulletin of Bibliography 39 (September, 1982). Includes a brief biographical essay and listings of all works in every genre to 1982, including Madden’s many short stories, as well as secondary sources. Reviews are conveniently listed with the works reviewed.

Prestridge, Samuel N. “An Interview with David Madden.” Mississippi Review 6 (1977).

Walt, James. “Review of The Suicide’s Wife.” The New Republic 179 (October 7, 1978): 39-40.