Bayou Pages | “The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides

“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.”

Alicia and Gabriel Berenson’s love story featured displays of affection and tension-filled exchanges that leave each desperate to retain the love of the other – or so we’re told. As Michaelides’ debut novel opens, Alicia is confined to the Grove, an asylum of sorts for those who committed criminal activity due to mental instability. Six years prior, Alicia shot Gabriel six times in the face and refused to speak another word, even in her own defense or in the therapy sessions devoted to her care. Our narrator Theo, a criminal psychologist, applies to work at the Grove, intent on getting Alicia to talk and solve the mystery of why she killed her husband. Theo ruminates, “There’s so much pain everywhere, and we just close our eyes to it. The truth is we’re all scared. We’re terrified of each other.” The Berenson crime of passion rocked London society and made Alicia’s art work notorious, as people would search for clues about the silent woman that refused to engage.

Theo’s attempts to engage Alicia at the Grove are interspersed with the rocky details of his own marriage to an actress he thinks is cheating on him. Focused on discovering the truth and scared of what the truth will mean, Theo seeks out his former therapist for guidance. We learn the instability of his childhood, layered with Alicia’s abandonment by her parents. As most of the narrative occurs in the drab, stale asylum with frequent bouts of violence, undergirded by an overcast London landscape that offers little reprieve, the aesthetic tension mounts as the plot escalates. Alicia’s voice is not entirely missing, as Theo discovers her diary with detailed accounts of her relationship up to and including the night of the murder. As Theo becomes more entangled with the life of his patient and what it means for his own relationship, readers understand the reasoning for professional and personal boundaries. Michaelides writes, “Borderlines are seductive,” and in a profession that by nature delves into the personal, the stickiness can’t be avoided. The novel features a bevy of speculative characters, including other therapists and people from Alicia’s past that keep us guessing until the final chapters. 

I don’t typically indulge thrillers, but this one came highly recommended and had me flipping pages deep into the evening. While the plot twist didn’t entirely shock me, I went into reading the novel knowing to expect one. For those fans of psychological thrillers layered with complex characters and those who like to untangle eerie webs, this book will suit your craving. This book has all the trappings of the crime and intrigue that we can’t avoid salivating through. 

“We are made up of different parts, some good, some bad, and a healthy mind can tolerate this ambivalence and juggle both good and bad at the same time. Mental illness is precisely about a lack of this kind of integration – we end up losing contact with the unacceptable parts of ourselves.”