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My Wife’s Book

“Tethered,” a novel by Amy MacKinnon, literary suspense, Random House. Think CSI on a soul-searching journey in which the protagonist is doing everything she can to look the other way. Searing gut-punch prose, a page-turner. OK, I’m her husband,* but I’m also a compulsive editor. She had other people performing that service for her, and after that early unpleasant experience when she showed me the second chapter, I resolved not to read it until it was irrefutably in print. Then, I couldn’t stop. 

Here’s the wife:

Damn, she’s looking good.

Now in the new releases section at your local bookstore, “Tethered” is about an undertaker who doesn’t believe in God. Amy began thinking about it after visiting the room where her uncle Richard prepares bodies for waking and burial. Amy’s faith is in a constant state of flux. Richard is a devout Catholic. She asked Richard, “Could you do this job if you didn’t believe in God?” Richard said, “I don’t see how.”

How you do it, as Amy explored the issue, turns out to have a lot to do with dark secrets and stumbling efforts at redemption, involving cops, an unidentified child’s body, killers. A lot of characters I encountered on a regular basis as a tabloid reporter in and around Boston, and the people and places are nailed by MacKinnon, suburban housewife and mother of my children. I don’t think she set out to write a Boston Herald novel, but she hits a lot of themes that make up the daily business of the wretched poor and the people who pick up the pieces, and those are the people we write about. Her characters and their world are real. I knew she had done a lot of research in the funeral home business and in Brockton, the rundown New England milltown where much of the action is set. What impressed me the most as a technical matter may be how she nailed the three-decker walkups, scenes of much tragedy where I spent a fair amount of professional time in the past. Then there’s the opening embalming scene, which you can read here. And the whole flower thing, which was a pretty inspired literary device.

* Full disclosure: if you buy this book you will helping to pay off the Crittenden-MacKinnon family debt. As a published author’s husband, here are some other thoughts. I learned my wife has writing ability when she showed me her first essay, shortly after our third child was born 10 years ago. Amy was nursing in the middle of the night, composing her own obit in her mind, and there was nothing in it. She started writing. The first one, about our son, I had no edits. It was perfect. I think I suggested two paragraphs be moved up. That’s pretty unusual. As any number of Herald scribblers can tell you, I am not always a kind editor. She went on to freelance essays, opeds and news articles for the Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Herald, the Boston Globe, National Public Radio and the Patriot-Ledger.  She wrote one novel that went nowhere, and this is the second. She’s also been active in Boston’s literary community, on the board at Grub Street and arranging author readings at local independent bookstores.

At the launch party at Buttonwood Books in Cohasset last night, I was congratulated by a lot of our friends and neighbors, as well as some of the other authors in attendance, including Hallie Ephron, Hank Phillippi Ryan and Lynne Griffin.  I said thanks, but all I did was vacuum a couple of times. People also want to know if, as a professional writer, I am jealous of my wife. No. I am immensely proud and impressed.

Topics: husbands and wives, literary, shameless self-promotion

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:42 am on Wednesday, August 13, 2008

5 Responses to “My Wife’s Book”

1. sarah rolph Says:
   August 13th, 2008 at 4:26 pm

   How very exciting!!! I have ordered the book and look forward to getting it signed at the first opportunity. Lots of great events coming up, it looks like.

   Very inspiring for the would-be someday novelist.

   The excerpt is amazing. Even her website is amazing. Folks, click on “about.” Ain’t yer usual “about.” Chillingly beautiful prose.

   Man, alive! Two great writers in one family? I can’t wait to read the work of your kids!!!!

2. Robert Says:
   August 13th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

   Congratulations. And good luck.

   My wife has been writing a book and I know what you have been going through. Her book will not be on the best seller lists a it is a scientific work.

   BTW, Great cover. Did Theo Spark pick the picture?

3. Moqtada al-Sadr Says:
   August 14th, 2008 at 5:50 am

   Infidel!

   Why have you allowed this woman out of the house? Am I to understand that she been taught to read and write? Does she not walk three steps behind you, as The Prophet decreed is proper for women and dogs?

   By the Twelve Toes of my Camel, Mustafa this makes me very angry, indeed!

   Whatever you do, DO NOT BUY HER BOOK! If you give a woman her own money, she will only spend it on the Manolo Blahniks and other decadent Western indulgences like food, clothing, and electronic devices. Better to beat her thrice daily upon the soles of her feet, that she may show the males in your household proper obedience.

4. A new baby | Neptunus Lex Says:
   August 14th, 2008 at 11:50 am

   [...] Jules’ wife Amy has been in labor - lo! - these several months, and she has finally brought forth. [...]

5. Vodkapundit » Required Reading? Says:
   August 19th, 2008 at 11:21 am

   [...] Posted by Stephen Green on 19 Aug 2008 at 09:21 am Jules Crittenden’s wife, Amy MacKinnon, has a new book out. I haven’t read it yet, but I can tell you this much: the cover is hot. [...]

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