Suzanne`s Diary for Nicholas

by Arthur Salm | Sep 19, 2001
Suzanne`s Diary for Nicholas About halfway through James Patterson's novel "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas" (Little, Brown, 288 pages, $22.95), an entry opens with a plea from mother and diarist Suzanne to her infant son. She begs him not to believe what she calls "the central premise" of Robert James Waller's "The Bridges of Madison County" ... "that romance can last for only a short time."

"Love between two people can last a long time," she counters, "if the people love themselves some, and are ready to give love to another person."

It was downright accommodating of Patterson to call Waller out onto the stage; I was just about to do that myself: Though Patterson may claim to stake out romantic territory at the opposite end of the schlock continuum, his prose is every bit as godawful. While it lacks RJW's shameless preening, it exceeds him in off-kilter imagery, reliance on cliche and sheer clunkiness:

"Suddenly Katie's head was reeling and she could barely catch her breath. She couldn't think straight, either."

"It felt so good to talk to him again; it was such a nice trip down memory lane."

"Then [the pain] got worse. Razor-sharp knives were shooting up and down my arm ..."

"What I especially like about the walks is the peaceful, easy feeling I have inside."

Most of "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas" is just that ... transcripts of a young mother's journal, written to her son. It tells of her love affair with the boy's father, Matthew, and it is being read by Katie, Matthew's girlfriend; something, it seems, has happened to Suzanne and Matthew's perfect union. Are they divorced? Did she meet a tragic end? Why did Matthew give Katie the diary, anyway?

All to be answered in good treacly time. Meanwhile, you might wonder about Katie's ability to express herself. Seems Matthew, the love of her life, dropped by a couple of evenings back to say he was breaking up with her. Out of the blue. Then out the door of her apartment, and he was gone."

And she had wanted to talk to him that night ... she'd had important things to tell him.

"Katie just never got the chance."

Katie was unable to do what any other woman on Earth would have done: follow her departing lover to the door and shout at his retreating back, "Oh, yeah? Well, I'm pregnant, buster!"

Now he's gone ... disappeared.

A couple of days later, he sends her the diary ... in which, remember, Suzanne writes that it is possible for love to last, if people love themselves some.

And how could any of these people not love themselves? Such perfect humans you've never met. Suzanne is a doctor who gave up her hectic Boston practice to treat the down-home folks of Martha's Vineyard and live in a charming, ramshackle old Martha's Vineyard beach house that couldn't have set her back more than a million dollars. She met her first serious boyfriend at the wedding of John Kennedy and Carolyn Bessette. Another boyfriend was a lawyer for the Environmental Protection Agency. Matthew is a published poet and "a gardener, bird-watcher, avid reader, pretty-good cook, basketball player, crossword-puzzle champion, and of course ... pretty good around the house." And it almost (but not quite) goes without saying, a dy-no-mite lover.

He watches "Ally McBeal," listens to Anita Baker and Eric Clapton, and goes to church on Sundays, where he teaches Bible classes to preschoolers. He and country doc Suzanne rub elbows in Martha's Vineyard dives with local yokels like William Styron and Carly Simon.

From the get-go, Suzanne violates one of the primary rules of writing: Know your audience. Nicholas is only an infant now, but one wonders at what age, exactly, his mom thought he might want to read of his parents' first ... well: "His fingers traveled down to the base of my spine, playing so very gently. He slipped off my blouse and I watched it float to the floor, milkweed in a breeze."

Is there a son anywhere who, upon encountering such a passage, would not fling the "small, antique-looking" diary across the room and scream, "Mo-o-o-o-m!"?

And what would anyone make of this entry, in which Suzanne describes her life at Massachusetts General Hospital? "There were moments that I absolutely loved, cherished: seeing patients get well, and even being with some when it was clear they wouldn't recover. Then there was the bureaucracy and the hopeless inadequacy of our country's current medical-care program."

Mom? Hello, Mom?

And finally: Well into the book, Patterson pulls the ol' bait-and-switch ... not an unprincipled tactic for a novelist, but more than a little underhanded from a mother scribbling impassioned missives to her child. That "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas" is gag-me-with-a-silver-spoon, simple-minded twaddle has not prevented it from becoming the No. 1 best seller on The New York Times' hardcover fiction list. This is Patterson's first attempt at a love story; previously, he has turned out mysteries and thrillers, in which, perhaps, real "razor-sharp knives" shoot up and down people's arms. Even that would be an improvement.

(C)Copley News Service

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Author: Arthur Salm

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