The Thing of It Is – William Goldman (1967)

The Thing of It Is by William Goldman was published in 1967 and stands as a sharp, introspective exploration of a crumbling marriage amid the broader themes of identity and success. Goldman, widely known for screenplays like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride, infuses this novel with both biting humor and aching vulnerability. The story follows Amos McCracken, a young composer who has achieved sudden fame with a Broadway hit, as he navigates personal disillusionment and emotional disconnection while vacationing in London with his wife and daughter.

Plot Summary

Amos McCracken, thirty-one, husband, father, and newly anointed composer of a smash Broadway hit, finds himself in London with his wife, Lila, and daughter, Jessica, trying to save something that might already be lost. On paper, everything looks good – “Francie”, his breakout song, has taken over the airwaves, plastered across radios from Piccadilly to Pittsburgh. But inside, he feels hollow, the kind of empty that fame only magnifies. He is a man who should be celebrating but finds himself measuring the distance between himself and everything he once thought he loved.

Their trip begins with a quarrel. Amos, armed with London tube maps and a misguided sense of confidence, suggests they take the subway to St. Paul’s. Lila, sharp, stylish, and unrelenting, flags a taxi without acknowledging the suggestion. Jessica, gripping her rag doll Cuddly and armed with a bag of radio show catchphrases, watches the silent war from below. She has learned to perform whenever her parents bicker, and lately, she’s been performing too often.

The cab ride is blistering with heat and tension. Small complaints swell into accusations. Lila’s voice slices through the London air, elegant but laced with contempt, questioning Amos’s tipping habits and ridiculing his passivity. Amos, soft-spoken and inwardly turbulent, swallows his words until Jessica interrupts with a high-pitched reenactment of the Lone Ranger. It deflates the fight, momentarily.

The song plays again – Francie – loud and bright from a nearby convertible. Lila glows, not just with pride, but with the smugness of vindication. Her poor, indecisive Princeton songwriter husband has become someone. Her decision to marry Amos, in defiance of her domineering mother, has been justified. Amos sees this and it burns him. He doesn’t even like the song, finds it pedestrian, repetitive, and far from his best work. But it’s catchy, and catchy pays.

St. Paul’s Cathedral, when they finally arrive, is grand and cool and startlingly beautiful. The weight of the dome above and the reverent hush inside unmoor Amos from the bitterness he carried into the building. He looks at Wren’s grave and reads the Latin inscription – Reader, if you seek my monument, look around. Amos feels small. He thinks of his own monument, a song he barely respects, and wonders if immortality is worth the price of meaninglessness.

Jessica insists on visiting the Whispering Gallery. It’s in her guidebook, the child’s one, the kind that commands with pastel certainty. Lila encourages her. Amos’s back is aching again – an old pain, possibly psychosomatic, possibly real, flaring up at inconvenient moments. They begin the climb, the three of them, up the spiral staircase. Amos tries to keep pace with Jessica’s determined little legs and Lila’s graceful strides, but the pain becomes sharper with each step.

He rests midway, knuckles jammed into his spine, alone and quietly ashamed. Lila stands above, silhouetted by stone, and calls him a sissy. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just with enough weight to land in his chest and crack something he’d tried to armor. It is the word, the only one that still held power. Sissy – a word thick with childhood humiliations, piano lessons in short pants, missed fly balls, and whispered taunts.

He waits until they’ve gone ahead, then climbs, fast and angry, past tourists and schoolchildren. When he reaches the gallery, he charges at Lila, grabs her by the shoulders, and shakes her with fury that surprises them both. He hurls his pain back at her, curses her for using the one word she knew would cut deepest. Jessica watches. And from the hush of the gallery, voices rise. Tourists stare. A priest hurries toward them, rebukes them, and demands they leave. The Whispering Gallery, meant for awe, becomes the echo chamber of a marriage unraveling.

Back down the stairs, tension trails them like smoke. Jessica tries to break the silence with bits and jingles. Amos, embarrassed and angry, makes jokes that no one laughs at. The heat outside feels worse now. They choose the subway, stubbornly committed to the original plan. Directions become a mess. The walk stretches too long. Jessica clutches his hand while Lila lags behind, their sync lost even in the simplest things.

Finally, they reach the station. The platform is quiet, the train nowhere in sight. Jessica wants Cuddly. Neither parent has it. The realization hits hard – the doll has been left behind, forgotten somewhere in the chaos. Jessica wails. Her sobs echo down the tunnel, and Amos, panicked and helpless, holds her in his lap on the subway floor. He tries to soothe her with nonsense words and gentle touches, all under the curious eyes of strangers.

The train arrives. They board without Cuddly. Jessica cries harder. Lila says nothing. Amos wants to explain, wants to promise that everything will be all right, but the words stick. He sees himself reflected in the dark subway window, not as a man who has it all, but as someone trying to keep together what’s left.

Back at the hotel, they will go through the motions – dinner, baths, stories. Amos might lie awake again, replaying everything in his head, wondering when the love slipped out the door and why he didn’t chase after it. He will think about the Wren inscription again, about monuments and what survives. Jessica will sleep soundly, dreamless maybe, or maybe dreaming of a rag doll lost in a sacred space. Lila will retreat into silence, a fortress he cannot breach.

There are no resolutions here. Just the quiet spaces between words, the weight of things unsaid, and the strange comfort of staying together even as everything bends toward breaking.

Main Characters

• Amos McCracken – Amos is a thirty-one-year-old composer whose unexpected success with the hit song “Francie” brings more anxiety than joy. Plagued by self-doubt, a painful back, and a faltering marriage, he is deeply introspective, often dissecting his own failings with harsh clarity. His internal monologue is the heart of the novel, revealing a man unsure of how to reconcile his public success with private disappointment.
• Lila Rowan McCracken – Lila is Amos’s sharp-tongued and emotionally distant wife. Once passionately in love with Amos, she now frequently clashes with him in front of their daughter, Jessica. Though often combative, she is also portrayed with moments of complexity and pain, suggesting a woman caught between love, frustration, and the remnants of her upbringing.
• Jessica McCracken – The four-year-old daughter of Amos and Lila, Jessica provides emotional ballast to the story. Innocent yet perceptive, her presence often moderates the couple’s tensions. She performs “bits” from old radio shows to diffuse arguments, a subtle and heartbreaking indication of her sensitivity to their discord.
• Dr. Marx – Amos’s analyst, Marx serves as a dry, often sardonic sounding board in Amos’s quest for understanding himself. Though he appears only in flashbacks, his presence frames Amos’s descent into introspection and underscores the psychological depth of the novel.

Theme

• The Disintegration of Love and Marriage: Amos and Lila’s relationship is central to the novel, marked by miscommunication, resentment, and occasional tenderness. Their exchanges are laced with sarcasm and suppressed rage, revealing the difficulty of sustaining love amid unmet expectations and emotional exhaustion. The novel captures the erosion of intimacy with a raw, unsparing eye.
• Success vs. Fulfillment: Amos’s professional triumph with the song “Francie” contrasts sharply with his inner emptiness. Though he should feel accomplished, he instead questions the value of his success, suggesting that public acclaim often masks personal despair. This dichotomy highlights the illusion of external validation.
• Parenthood and Innocence: Jessica’s role serves as both a buffer and a barometer. Her innocence highlights the immaturity of her parents’ conflicts, and her reactions often expose the deeper emotional truths of the situation. She embodies both hope and vulnerability, particularly in moments like losing her rag doll Cuddly – a stand-in for emotional security.
• Masculinity and Identity: The concept of masculinity is dissected through Amos’s struggle with being called a “sissy” by Lila. His shame, anger, and the emotional scars from his childhood show how deeply ingrained gender expectations have affected his self-perception. This theme is also explored through his unresolved Jewish identity and desire to be seen as something he is not.

Writing Style and Tone

William Goldman writes with a distinctive blend of irony, wit, and psychological acuity. His prose often mirrors the rhythms of Amos’s neurotic inner dialogue, shifting rapidly between acerbic observation and wounded introspection. The writing has a conversational immediacy, immersing readers directly into Amos’s mental and emotional turbulence. Goldman’s knack for dialogue brings the characters vividly to life, especially during the couple’s verbal skirmishes which oscillate between darkly comic and painfully intimate.

The tone of The Thing of It Is veers from humorous to melancholic, sometimes within a single page. Beneath the banter and cultural references lies a potent sadness, a sense of a man slowly unraveling in the face of adulthood’s disappointments. Goldman never allows sentimentality to dilute the honesty of the narrative. Instead, the tone captures the emotional ambivalence of a man caught between past hopes and present disillusionment.