The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

My darling babes,

It was high time for a review of a book I actually 100% recommend. 

Read the book first. You won't regret it.

***

This book made me realise that I quite enjoy books written by men. I haven't read many; or at least I never used to pay any mind to the writers before. Among the few that I've read are Markus Zusak, James Dashner, a bit of Dan Brown, and Adam Kay, not mentioning the classics; all of whom are my favourites. I love the straightforwardness of their writing. The no-bullshit bluntness. The void of too many emotions and yet the intense feelings they can evoke. A product of the impenetrable wall that exists between men and women. 

Synopsis:

The book follows Theo Faber, forensic psychotherapist and narrator. He took an interest in a 6-year-old case of accused murder. A woman named Alicia Berenson had been accused of killing her husband in cold blood, shooting him multiple times in the face and slitting her wrists afterwards. Alicia never spoke a word after the murder. The only statement she made was a painting, a self-portrait, standing naked in front of a blank, white canvas, holding a paintbrush dripping with red paint. Or blood. Alicia was sent off to The Grove, a psychiatric institution, after she was decreed insane by a psychiatrist who made the claim on her case. Faber is determined to find out what had happened, and to get her to speak.

Review (With Spoilers)

For the spoiler part, Theo's wife Kathy cheats on him, which he finds out through slutty emails (not the Boomer Gen sexting through email 😭) she'd been sending to the guy. He doesn't bring it up. Though he naturally acts more distant, he convinces himself he doesn't want to leave Kathy; he was never good enough for her anyway, like he had never been to deserve his father's affection, so her act is justified to him (see: the link between childhood trauma and adult attachment issues + plummeted self-esteem). Theo goes on to dig in Alicia's past for clues. Against the will of The Grove, he contacts the people close to her from her past, trying to get something, anything, that would help him understand Alicia better. 

The plot twist? Have you ever watched Shutter Island? 

***

This is one of the most hyped books on social media these past few months, but I'm not sure that's the only reason I wanted to get my hands on it. Clearly it's written by someone who has a firm grasp of the world of psychology. I was curious. How would he paint his characters? How would he incorporate their experiences of trauma and pain? I was curious about it all.

Michaelides's writing isn't what I would call phenomenal, nor ingenious. At least not yet; I wouldn't mind seeing an opportunity later on to change that. It's simple. Straightforward. A man's ink. That's not to say, of course, that certain passages aren't particularly poignant. I've come across a few - mostly those instances where he truly links the workings of the mind to a person. In simpler terms, he knows how to make the link between childhood trauma and its affects on adulthood. I suppose that's one of the prevalent themes in the book. He makes that link in most of his characters, even and especially in the narrator. It was in fact that very link in Alicia's case that made me put the book away to save this moment here:

"I don't want to admit the truth to myself - that a huge part of my life is missing. That I've denied I want children, pretending I have no interest in them, that all I care about is my art. And it's not true. It's just an excuse. The truth is I'm scared to have kids. I am not to be trusted with them.

Not with my mother's blood running through my veins."

It got me thinking that perhaps this is the reason so many women and girls of this generation refuse to have kids. Sure, there are career reasons, supposedly reason-less personal choices. But this is one of the reasons that we don't talk about, and yet which holds true for so many. We don't want to have children for them to suffer like us. We don't want to be the ones to make them suffer like we suffered at the hands of those who claimed to love us. So many say that it's selfish. I think it's one of the most selfless choices one can make. 

I didn't have so much on my mind, I would've finished this book in half a night. It's not exactly extremely compelling; I'd say it's more such an easy and interesting little book, with a heck of a lot of psychoeducation for dummies and laymen (That's rude; it's educational for everyone), that you hardly realise you've flipped through half of it until you pull the pages from your nose to assess your progress. I get the hype. A bit. A tad. 

'One can't help but wonder what their relationship will be like in the future, Alcestis and Admetus. Trust, once lost, is hard to recover.'

Hard, but not impossible. An interesting choice of word.

For reasons that elude me, I had the oddest desire to a reaction when Alicia smiled. I wanted to fling the book across the room. It was a well-placed and yet the most awfully-timed reaction from her. I'm not quite sure why. 25 chapters in, and that's when we get a first glimpse of sanity, of aliveness. I want to pick the book apart, come up with a million reasons why it's so wrong. Why hadn't anyone, in 6 years, ever thought of giving the artist, an opportunity to bloody paint? Especially when that was the only way she ever communicated since the murder of her husband. But I'm not going to do that ^^ I'm going to let it slide, because despite those nagging questions, I felt a sense of triumph when she showed a reaction. As though I were her psychotherapist.

***

Hoooooolllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy cow. I must say, I did not see this one coming. 

In a nutshell, the narrator, Theo Faber, is the cause of the murder. Technically, Alicia killed Gabriel with five bullets in the face. But it was Theo who was the cause of it all. He has childhood trauma issues, and his wife was cheating on him with Alicia's husband. He found out, and wanted to help Alicia "see clearly". He wanted her to see that her husband didn't love her. But it all backfired. He hadn't intended to kill anyone, just for the truth to come out. What Theo did not know was that Alicia was herself broken, with childhood trauma of her own. And this all came out with the betrayal of her husband. And she killed him.

I know now why no one had been able to make Alicia talk in six years. She still would never have spoken, if Theo had been an ordinary man. But he wasn't. She recognised him as the man who broke into her house and dare I put it this way - provoked her to kill her husband, the man she loved most in the world. I doubt it was because of his infidelity that she killed him. Gabriel was such a sick jerk. When Theo asked him to choose between his life and Alicia's, to choose who would die (it was all a ruse, to show Alicia the kind of man her husband truly was), he chose himself. Not her. And she killed him.

I have a lot of feelings and non-feelings about this book. I'll only talk about the feelings. How crude, how unjust, that Theo got to keep his wife, his relationship, for six more years, while another couple was destroyed at his hands? But it's all twisted, really. It's funny, too. Kathy and Theo got together after they both cheated on their former partners. And, naturally, Kathy repeated her pattern, as people do. Too bad she didn't know she married a psychopath psychotherapist. Although, I wouldn't exactly call Theo a psychopath. Like I said, it's complicated. He didn't technically do anything wrong, and his intentions were...good seems a bit far-fetched, but something along those lines. I suppose it was psychotic behaviour to attack Alicia instead of making her see reason in a different way; but what other way was there? A re-creation of Admetus and Alcestis seemed appropriate, though mad. 

Anyway, the debate can be endless.

It's a curious story, to say the least. I believe I would've been more intrigued and caught in its web had I not watched Shutter Island. Both stories are interlinked, in my opinion. Same approach. 

I like this book a lot for its psychological insights. There were some good stuff in it. Especially 'the emotional effects of psychological wounds on children, and how they manifest themselves later as adults.' A key theme. The main theme. And nicely woven through the plot.

Overall, a book I would read again, and mark and write in. 

A four star, if I dare. For reasons that are beyond me.

Toodles.

“About love. About how we often mistake love for fireworks – for drama and dysfunction. But real love is very quiet, very still. It’s boring, if seen from the perspective of high drama. Love is deep and calm – and constant.”

 

“You know, Theo, one of the hardest things to admit is that we weren’t loved when we needed it most. It’s a terrible feeling, the pain of not being loved."

 

“Remember, love that doesn’t include honesty cannot be called love.’