by Alex Michaelides
Painter Alicia Berenson seems to have it all: a successful career and a happy marriage. Until one evening when she shoots dead her husband — and then remains mute for the years that follow. Can psychotherapist Theo Faber get the enigmatic Alicia to open up about what happened that fateful night?
As I read Michaelides’s debut novel, I was put in mind of the 1944 movie, Laura. Instead of watching the film’s detective fall in love with an apparently dead woman, we experience narrator Faber’s obsession with his living, but silent, patient. Is Faber falling for Alicia? Is something else afoot?
The thing about fictional twists is this: If you buy into the story as a whole, you’re more likely to accept what might otherwise seem far-fetched. You can be gobsmacked by plot reveals. If you don’t buy into the story, the twists can feel like cheating.
I found The Silent Patient intriguing enough. If I ever re-read it, I might discover plot problems; as it is, I thought the book was clever. I got gobsmacked.
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