I recently read chapter 1 of The Right Stuff (1983, Tom Wolfe, Farrar, Straus & Giroux). The chapter is focused on events has seen by a woman called Jane. Her husband is in the army and she lives in community of army families.
The neighbours are discussing an event that has occurred. The reader is not told what has happened but Jane knows what they are referring to. What Jane wants to know is if the event involves her husband.
The writer keeps the reader in suspense by not revealing what happened until the end. Instead we are first taken back to when Jane and her husband first met and how they built their house with the help of friend. The writer then describes the anguish Jane experiences has she tries to find out more information about what happened. There are clues throughout the chapter that allows the reader to guess what has happened.
While remaining secretive about the event, the writer still manages to be very descriptive about other elements of the story. From the location and style of the house to the physical appearance the charters, the descriptions are very energetic and metaphoric. Examples include “wild grin” and “green screen of pine trees”. The writer is not shy when it comes to describing death. Instead of relying on “burnt beyond recognition”, the writer says “an enormous fowl that has … a greasy blackish brown ... charred hulk with wings and shanks sticking out of it”.
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