Turnabout (Thorne Smith novel)

The year is presumably 1931 or thereabouts, the year the novel was published. The country is in the midst of both Prohibition and The Depression.

The Depression gets some small mention, but only an occasional nod: the characters are for the most part solidly middle class. Most of the action takes place in Cliffside, an upscale suburb of New York City, perhaps an allusion to Cliffside Park, New Jersey. Life in suburbia is central to the plot.

Prohibition gets more attention and a few direct references. Several of the characters consume copious amounts of alcohol, including especially the lead character, Tim Willows. Tim and Sally Willows have liquor in their bedroom, drink from flasks, and even get cups of liquor from the receptionist at the advertising agency where Tim works. Nobody is punished for violating prohibition-era alcohol laws.

Sally and Tim Willows live in Cliffside. Tim works at the National Advertising Agency. Sally does not work.

Mr. Ram is a small, ages-old Egyptian statue given to Tim and Sally by Tim’s Uncle Dick Willows. Mr. Ram stands in the Willows’ bedroom, observing the couple’s constant marital bickering, judging, and eventually acting. After they both complain about how easy the other’s life is – Tim goes to his work, gets out of the house and does interesting things, like flirting with girls, while Sally gets to lie around the house all day and do whatever she pleases – they state twice in front of Mr. Ram that they wish they could change places. Mr. Ram makes it happen.

Prior to the switch, Sally’s flirtation with unattached Carl Bentley becomes a flashpoint of their marital conflict. Although the novel eventually makes clear that Sally and Carl have never consummated their relationship, the flirting is obvious to their neighbors and even Tim. It leads to Tim nearly murdering Carl. Tim goes so far as stuffing Carl’s presumed-dead body in the coal furnace, with Sally’s help, and it’s only the next day on the commuter train when Tim and Carl meet by chance that Tim discovers that Carl is alive. After the body switch, Sally must go to the advertising agency to work as Tim, while Tim must stay at home and do social functions. Unfortunately, Tim – as Sally – gets pregnant. The circumstance is barely alluded to. They constantly slip-up in disguising their role change, a source of much of the book’s comedy, but Tim and Sally manage to pull off a successful advertising campaign for union suits, embarrass Carl Bentley and ruin his reputation. Tim gives birth while still in Sally’s body, but switches back very soon afterward.^[1]

Turnabout was not the first body-swapping literary work. An earlier husband-wife swap novel was Avatar by Théophile Gautier (1856). Anthony Slide wrote in his biography of Thorne Smith:

The most obvious, but unacknowledged, influence in the writings of Thorne Smith is the English novelist Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856-1934), who wrote under the pseudonym of F. Anstey. His first novel, Vice Versa, published in 1882, contains elements to be found in Smith’s work. It is rightfully argued that all “body swap” plots owe much to Anstey’s writings.

However, Smith himself pointed to none of these – or any earlier literary source – as his inspiration for Turnabout.