The Pocket Wife - A Review
In many ways, a mystery book is a perfect example of a narrative that keeps readers guessing until the end. THE POCKET WIFE, by Susan Crawford, accomplishes this narrative feat splendidly. The book begins with a murder, and introduces the main protagonist, Dana Cantrell. She has just left the house of her neighbor, Celia, and discovers later that day that Celia was murdered. The question of who did it occupies the rest of the book.
THE POCKET WIFE is really more of a character study than it is a strict whodunit. Though there is a detective, Jack Moss, his presence in the novel grows more only after the first half. Dana and her mental health issues make up the bulk of the narrative. Dana is bipolar, with mood swings that oscillate from one emotional extreme to the other. When she was in university, she attempted to commit suicide. She was a free spirit then, an artist dating a man who is simply called the Poet. She decides to give up the bohemian lifestyle after her suicide attempt and meets a lawyer, her current husband, Peter.
When in Dana’s point of view, readers see the world through her eyes, which are not the most reliable. She believes Peter to be a poor excuse for a husband, though many of her activities may reasonably have contributed to some of Peter’s marital shortcomings. Dana is paranoid, she sees vision, and she has a love for classic poetry, which she quotes throughout the novel. Men seem drawn to her wildness, and there is a comparison to her and a stray cat that cannot be tamed that Dana finds and names Spot. Like the cat, Dana, too, is hard to love but exciting to be around.
When THE POCKET WIFE enters Detective Jack Moss’s point of view, the novel feels like a crime procedural. Jack is single-mindedly devoted to his job, has two ex-wives, a son who is a junkie, and another who died in Iraq. Whereas Dana’s perspective is scattered, Jack’s is focused. He is logical where she is emotional, he is stability where she is chaos. This dialectic puts their characterization into stark relief and allows readers to really analyze the different ways in which Susan Crawford painted the two individuals on the page.
Though the mystery is the aspect of the novel that creates a page turner, it is the character development that THE POCKET WIFE really seems to be about. Readers are meant to empathize with Dana, if not completely like some of the actions she takes. In the end, one cannot help but hope that these two lost and lonely souls find happiness, if not separately then together. However, seeing as how they have both been built by Susan Crawford, it is probably a safe bet that in the long run, their lives will not have a “happily ever after” conclusion.
