TONY AND SUSAN is the novel the Tom Ford's movie, NOCTURNAL ANIMALS comes from, Ford is only interested in a small part of the novel though. And he is more interested in style than substance. As I was vaguely dissatisfied with the movie, so too the novel.
Susan and Edward were married 15 years earlier. Both have remarried. One of the contentious issues in Susan and Edward's marriage was his desire to be a novelist. He didn't work very hard at doing this though. But now he sends Susan a ms of his novel. And at least half of the book is devoted to that novel. It's the story of a man, his wife and daughter, on their way to a vacation that are accosted by three scoundrels on the highway. His wife and daughter are taken as Tony stands helplessly by. The rest on the novel within the novel concern his efforts to alternately put this behind him and to find the men.
The Susan and Edward part of the novel details their marriage and also her subsequent marriage to Arnold, a doctor.
There are a lot of complimentary blurbs on the cover. One even from Saul Bellow. (The novel was written 25 years ago). But I found it repetitive in parts. We spend too much time with Tony and his abductors years later. Too much time with a sheriff trying to close his final case. I guess I wanted it to either be a noir novel or a domestic one. This one satisfied neither for me.
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11 comments:
To be honest, neither the book or movie has any interest for me.
Probably a good decision.
Tony and Susan seems an awful, awful title for a book
Fint title for a song!
Miner's up! Thanks, Patti...and for the mixed response to both the film and source novel here...
Took me forever to proofread and fix the photos in my post. It's up now. Once again: thanks for the reserved space. ;^)
A Corpse at Christmas by Henry Kane
Sorry you were disappointed in this one, Patti. Something I probably won't add to the ol' wish list. Thanks, as always, for including my post in this feature.
I'm not sure that a clothing designer has any business directing movies, frankly. I saw A Single Man and it was also a case of style over substance. Everyone looked great in their costumes. Fabulous sets, too. Colin Firth was fairly good. But the movie meandered. Isherwood's book is much better. I guess I'll avoid NOCTURNAL ANIMALS even though I enjoy watching Jake G on the screen no matter how bad the movie. ;^)
Hadn't heard of Tony and Susan, but you reminded me of Henry and Clara, Thomas Mallon's novel based on the lives of Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris, who shared the Ford Theater's presidential box with the Lincolns on that night. I read it years ago, and have just bought the Kindle version to read again and do a review for FFB. It made a powerful impression on me.
Pssssst...Todd's link ain't woikin'.
I am going to claim that I am being fashionably late today, Patti. It's up at last: SURVIVAL...ZERO by Mickey Spillane.
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