Telling Time: A Novel

by Austin Wright

When Thomas Westerly, a former college president, is wounded during an attempt to intercede in a hostage crisis, his eldest son is asked to put his papers in orders and discovers a father he never really knew

264 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1995

About the author

Austin McGiffert Wright was a novelist, literary critic and professor emeritus of English at the University of Cincinnati.
He grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, son of the geographer John Kirtland Wright and Katharine McGiffert Wright, and namesake of his uncle, Austin Tappan Wright, writer of the utopian novel, Islandia. He graduated from Harvard University in 1943. He served in the Army (1943–1946). He graduated from the University of Chicago, with a master's degree in 1948, and a Ph.D. in 1959.

He married Sara Hull Wright, in 1950. They had three children: Joanna Wright (died 2000), Katharine Wright of Berkeley, CA, and Margaret Wright, and two granddaughters, Madeline Giscombe and Elizabeth Perkins.

Reviews

[The Wee Hen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Much as I liked "Tony & Susan" despite the slightly ultra-"literary" pretensions, I hated this book. Way too many literary pretensions going on here. It seems Wright is attempting to tell a story about a dying father who has done some things he is ashamed of and he wants his son to go through is papers and destroy the things that he doesn't want the world to know. Well, waiting around to find out what Old Professor Dad did that is so shocking is intolerable in this book. Much as I'd like to find out the dirty little secret I just can't be bothered with what Austin is trying to do here. I'm rather ok with telling the story from different points of view, using letters, internal train of thought, newspaper articles, whatever. What I find intolerable is the total descent into incomplete sentences, incomplete thought. It becomes quite tiresome, very quickly. Add to it that Wright wants to confuse the characters as well as the reader about whether the Old Man in the story had a stroke or was shot. Why? Why not just make it clear what happened? But the worst crime in this fucking book? Well, the character who is charged with reading his father's work is beset by a need to spin bad and very boring poetry every page or so. He loves to yammer about walking around his father's neighborhood by the shore. Nobody cares. Boring boring boring. Which is too bad. Wright transcended his fancy-pants "Novel Pretensions" with "Tony and Susan" but sadly, he overindulges himself here with this crap. Abandoned this one about 50 pages in. I'm just not going to bother.

[Mikee · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting writing style. All monologues, from each character’s perceptions. No dialog. The story itself, not so much. An old man has a stroke and then dies. Family gathers - post-stroke - and then more family gathers for the funeral, etc. Everyone has secrets (normal stuff, mostly), and things they aren’t proud of. The book is too long. Too many people. Too many generations. It may have been better if it was 100 pages shorter.

[Ruby Cline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and heartwarming. Cried an embarrassing amount.