Nocturnal Animals

Official Film Tie-in Originally Published as Tony and Susan

By: Austin Wright

Narrated by: Lorelei King, Peter Marinker

Now a major motion picture directed by Tom Ford, starring Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Fifteen years ago, Susan Morrow left her first husband Edward Sheffield. One day, comfortable in her home and her second marriage, she receives - entirely out of the blue - a parcel containing the manuscript of her ex-husband's first novel. He writes asking her to read the book; she was always his best critic, he says. As Susan reads, she is drawn into the fictional life of Tony Hastings, a maths professor driving his family to their summer house in Maine. And as we read along with her, so are we. As the Hastings' ordinary, civilized lives veer disastrously, violently off course, Susan is plunged back into the past, forced to confront the darkness that inhabits her, and driven to name the fear that gnaws at her future.

Tony and Susan is a dazzling achievement: simultaneously a riveting portrayal of the experience of reading and an engrossing thriller, written in startlingly arresting prose. It is also a novel about fear and regret, revenge and aging, marriage and creativity. Absolutely not to be missed.

©1993 Austin Wright (P)2011 Audible Ltd

Critic reviews

“Absorbing, terrifying, beautiful and appalling. I loved Tony and Susan and became intensely involved in it. Parts of it shocked me and I am not easily shocked. It is easy to say that something one has read is unforgettable, but this novel I know I never shall forget.” (Ruth Rendell)

“A f***king masterpiece. I wish that Wright was still alive so that I could tell him so.... It's going to become a living, breathing, knock-out classic. Astonishing.” (M J Hyland)

dark but well written

This is a well written book, but the subject matter is far darker than what it appears. I wouldn't recommend it for late night listening.