The Suicide’s Wife (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: 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
- Setting: The fictitious university town of San Francisco, West Virginia
- Principal Characters: Ann Harrington, Mark Harrington, Max Crane
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, 1960’s, Self-discovery, Mothers, Parents and children, Suicide, San Francisco, Widows or widowers
- Locales: West Virginia, San Francisco, WV
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...
[The entire page is 2263 words long]
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