Suspension by Robert Westfield
(Harper Perennial, $13.95)

Several novelists have tackled the thorny topic of the September 11 attacks, with varying degrees of success. In his funny and touching book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer detailed the aftermath of the events from the perspective of a precocious boy whose father died at the World Trade Center. Ian McEwan gave a British account of the fallout of 9/11 in the expertly written but stilted novel Saturday.
Now gay American writer Robert Westfield makes his debut with Suspension, the tale of a young man who is bewildered by the surreal changes in his life after September 11. It’s an ambitious book that blends elements of mystery, romance and outright farce. While the first half is highly engaging, the second half suffers from slopping plotting, confusing changes of perspective and jarring tonal changes. Westfield may be up to something intrepid when he suddenly transitions from high drama to Three’s Company-style shtick, but it was lost on me.
Andy Green, the narrator, is a New Yorker who makes his living devising multiple choice questions for standardized tests. Through his best friend Sonia – a Russian cabaret singer who speaks mangled English- he meets a wealthy boyfriend who disappears under mysterious circumstances. Andy gets a grip on this romantic debacle, but he’s driven into hiding after he and his future brother-in-law get savagely beat up.
So far so good, but the plot really gets out of hand in the remaining stretch. The events of September 11 transpire while Andy is holed up in his apartment. When he finally emerges no one is who they seem to be, and there’s an unsolved murder and some white collar crimes to contend with. Without exception Westfield’s resolutions to these dilemmas are either uninspired or painfully contrived.
Without prowling for symbolism, the title refers to the suspension bridges that play a pivotal role in the plot. One is the Brooklyn Bridge, the site of a romantic interlude and, on a disturbing note, a death by gunfire. The second suspension bridge in question is in Wheeling, West Virginia, site of the novel’s anticlimactic climax.