How reckless, how dangerous, we can be in the grip of an obsession. We can steal, lie, do murder even. And just before you say, not I, know that if this can happen with Terence Greene, oh yes, it can happen with you. Terence is the protagonist in Joyce Carol Oates’ novel, Double Delight. He is the director of a charity, (a deft move by Oates to give him gravitas) and lives in the wealthy suburb of Queenston, New Jersey. He wears expensive suits during the week and, when not socialising with the other well-to-do residents of Queenston, he fiddles with his small DYI projects on weekends. Terence is stolidly and eminently respectable. However, when he is called up for jury duty he becomes immediately infatuated with Ava-Rose, who he first sees running across the road while he is looking for a parking space in order to attend jury selection. When Ava Rose is revealed as the victim of an assault in the case Terence is assigned as juror, he becomes besotted. He no longer listens to the case for the defence and takes an immediate dislike to the defence lawyer. As jury foreman, he convinces his fellow jurors to convict. His connection with Ava-Rose does not finish after the case, however. Terence seeks her out and becomes secretly enmeshed in her life and the lives of the people she calls her family.
It may all sound a bit much. How can such a man go on to commit all manner of crimes? From the outset, it is clear that Terence, while seemingly embedded in a life of privilege, is deeply unhappy. Having married into wealth, he is living a life which does not sit well with him. He is going through the process expected of him by his wife, his mother-in-law, his children and his neighbours. It is possible, even though Oates does not tell us so, that Ava Rose represents the kind of life he might have lived, an easier, less constrained existence.
Originally published under the nom de plume of Rosamond Smith, Oates’ fascination with the dark side of human nature in her much-lauded short fiction, is alive and well in this “Smith” psychological thriller and I’m keen to read more. Double Delight has the feel of her short stories in that nothing is wasted. All exists to create the final effect, as she draws Terence and the reader along inevitably toward it. And like short fiction, her ending is ambiguous, but not unsatisfying. The reader must decide. It is a moral judgement of sorts, and in my case, it left me suspicious of righteousness. That’s interesting, right?
Oates is doing something unusual with her unsettling ending, in that the suspense genre is well-known for its emphatically positive endings. The suspense builds throughout to a cathartic moment and then is released and drains away. Not so in this novel. What would you do for love? What would I? What are we capable of? Oates’ well-known short story, Where are you going, Where have you been?, which she dedicated interestingly enough to Bob Dylan, also delves into the darkness, the monster. It, too, is fabulous, but be warned. It’s chilling. Read it and Double Delight…I dare you.