The Silent Wife was a first novel for A.S.A. Harrison,
who unfortunately died earlier this year. It has received many rave reviews
with the Daily Mail rating it as “Dark as Hell and totally engrossing.”
Library details are ISBN 978-1-4722-1684-7, Headline Publishing Group 2013.
The plot begins with an in depth look at the two characters about whom the
book revolves, with Jodi (the wife) first and Todd (the husband) second.
Jodi is a psychotherapist and you get the feeling that she is actually
psychoanalyzing herself. Todd, a much less complex character, comes across
as every man’s friend with his apparently easygoing character. Todd,
however, is a serial womanizer. He is also unhappy in his marriage to Jodi,
wondering, “When was it that his home life became a penance?”
Jodi is very much aligned to the various psychotherapy theories and has been
through the personal examination carried out by her tutors, so has a much
better concept of herself than most people. This she uses to remain in
personal equilibrium in the marriage which is going topsy-turvy.
After the introductions, the chapters alternate between the two people, with
Jodi going into denial and Todd attempting to run two households, while
attempting to fool himself as to his motives. Each chapter is also written
in both the first person and the third person, making the reader something
of a voyeur.
As the novel moves on, the two people find themselves caught up in the
emotional roller-coaster, one in denial, the other hopeful that ‘somehow’
things will be resolved in the morning and everything will be fine!
In any marital problems, the advent of the legal profession is guaranteed to
kill any residual ardor and will produce a confrontational situation, and
this is a tipping point in the relationship, which was, up till then,
looking as if it could be retrieved.
There is also the time when each has to review not only their relationship,
but also their understanding of themselves as individuals. These two
chapters are very deep and “Dark as Hell” as the Daily Mail declared.
The pace picks up as the end of the book approaches and you are taken into a
mental maelstrom as all the psychological trauma takes its toll.
The book finishes with “No need to stare reality in the face if there’s a
kinder, gentler way.” That may be so, but author A.S.A. Harrison does not
follow her own advice all the way through the book’s plot. You will meet
some very unkind and far from gentle aspects of the human psyche, and
people’s reactions to each other, tainted by their own appreciation of
themselves, or lack of it.
At B. 360 it is a very inexpensive read. A true psychological thriller which
will keep you Jung (sorry about that) and remembering your own previous
problems, fighting your way through life, and what it throws up at you!
The author, Susan Harrison (died 14 April 2013) was a Canadian writer and
artist who published under the name A. S. A. Harrison. Shortly before the
novel’s publication, she died of cancer, aged 65.
