The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Published by: Hachette India

Fiction: Psychological Thriller, 325 pages

Rating: 4/5 stars

Book summary:

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him

About the author:

Alex Michaelides is the writer of the film, The Devil You Know starring Rosamund Pike. He also co-wrote The Con is On starring Uma Thurman, Tim Roth, Parker Posey and Sofia Vergara. The Silent Patient is his debut novel.

 My Review:

I was intrigued by the buzz around this book and had to read it. And boy! Quite a compelling read, it kept me hooked and desperate to know where the story was going. The book alternates between the diary entry of an acclaimed artist Alicia Berenson, who is indicted for murdering her husband in an open-and-shut case and hasn’t spoken a word since and Theo Faber, a psychotherapist who narrates the story. Alicia has been institutionalized at the Grove mental health facility where Theo has joined for work with a fascinated belief that he can reach out to Alicia. Theo finds that Alicia is being medicated to a point that she will not react, much less speak and the reader is presented with an array of characters who might not want Alicia to speak at all. Theo is the only one who believes that he can make Alicia tell her side of the story for which he is prepared to bend a few rules at the Grove even as he struggles with how it triggers his own inadequacies in his life. The tense silences between Theo and Alicia are perfectly captured, as are the frustrations that Theo battles as he tries to reach out to the later. The plot narrative plays out like a film and the reader can almost see the events unfolding and holding you in its vice like grip.

I really did expect the author to have a psychotherapy background for he has brought in the process and elements of actual therapy processes and elements that make the narrative believable. Mental health in its various forms like psychosis, paranoia etc plays a huge role in the book – not just as a back drop but as elements in a majority of its protagonists. The quotes from well known psychotherapists (Freud, Jung and others) before each section of the book is something that readers need to give some attention to so you will not be gob smacked when the big twist plays it out. The clever turn to the Euripides Greek tragedy Alcestis (referenced right in the prologue) is where the plot holds the clue to what really happened and why.

If you love a lip smacking psychological thriller, I would ask you to read this one right away – you will not be disappointed!

 

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