The silent patient book summary - Readershub
The silent patient book summary
The Silent Patient (2019) is a present day psychological thriller from writer Alex Michaelides. It tells the story of Alicia, who killed her husband, Gabriel, six years earlier—and hasn’t spoken since. The bulk of the novel takes area in the present-day, narrated via Theo Faber, a forensic psychoanalyst who these days commenced working with Alicia at The Grove, the intellectual institute the place she resides following Gabriel’s murder. The novel makes use of the epistolary technique, interspersing Theo’s narrative with excerpts from Alicia’s historical diary, a written narrative from the previous that recounts the weeks going for walks up to Gabriel’s murder. These two narratives subsequently intersect in a plot twist that exhibits that Theo and Alicia have a shared previous that is a long way greater non-public than the easy doctor-patient relationship first presented.
Alex Michaelides is Cypriot-American creator and screenwriter. He resides in London, the place The Silent Patient is set. Upon publication, the novel went to the pinnacle of the New York Times bestseller list. This learn about information refers to the Astramare Ltd Edition version, posted in 2019.
Note: The novel offers with doubtlessly triggering issues, along with suicide, murder, mental/physical abuse, intellectual illness, and trauma.
Forensic psychotherapist Theo Faber, 42, narrates The Silent Patient via introducing its most important plotline: the thriller of Alicia Berenson. Alicia is a painter who murdered her husband Gabriel Berenson six years earlier. She used to be 33 at the time. Gabriel used to be forty four Authorities determined Alicia at the scene: She had shot Gabriel 5 instances in the head and then slit her wrists. Alicia has no longer spoken since. The solely clue as to her nation of idea following the homicide is a self-portrait she created, and signed with “ALCESTIS.” She was once dedicated to a intellectual institution, The Grove. The narrative strikes in phase via Theo’s present-day narration and in phase via Alicia’s historic diary, which recounts the weeks main up to Gabriel’s murder. At the start, it’s six years after the murder. Theo is beginning a new job at The Grove, a role he pursued with the purpose of working with Alicia. Alicia’s high-profile case has captivated him for years.
In his first session with Alicia, Theo finds her closely medicated via her foremost therapist, Christian West. Determined to speak with Alicia, Theo requests that they lower her dosage. In their subsequent session, Alicia is extra alert—and bodily assaults him. Although The Grove’s manager, Stephanie Clarke, needs to shut down Theo’s periods with Alicia, Lazarus Diomedes, medical director at The Grove, intervenes and decides to provide Theo six weeks to get Alicia to talk. Theo is decided to locate out why Alicia killed Gabriel and why she won’t speak. Since he can’t speak with her verbally, he motels to taking part in the position of detective, interviewing her family, neighbors, and friends. He learns from Alicia’s neighbor, Barbie Hellmann, that Alicia had a stalker in the weeks earlier than Gabriel’s murder.
Alongside recounting his investigation into Alicia, Theo additionally narrates small print of his non-public life, introducing a subplot related to the infidelity of his spouse Kathryn, or Kathy. Theo by accident discovers the affair one night. The betrayal is earth shattering for Theo, who has struggled with his very own intellectual fitness issues in the previous (including an unsuccessful suicide attempt). In his non-public life, away from The Grove, he transforms into the clichéd jealous husband, obsessively checking Kathy’s emails and stalking her when she meets her lover to verify his suspicions.
Back at The Grove, Theo learns that Alicia has stabbed some other affected person with a paintbrush. Christian has resumed Alicia’s medicinal drug and positioned her in isolation. Lazarus tells Theo that he can no longer see Alicia for counseling. Theo can pay Alicia a final visit—and she offers him her diary. It confirms what Barbie informed Theo—that Alicia had a stalker in the weeks earlier than Gabriel’s murder. From the diary, Theo learns that Alicia informed Gabriel and her therapist—who Theo realizes used to be Christian, accepting off-the-books money repayments in change for secret personal treatment—about her stalker. Neither man believed her. Christian prescribed anti-psychotic medication, which Alicia didn’t take in case it left her prone to an attack. In the last diary entry, Alicia writes that her stalker is in the house. Theo returns the diary to Alicia.
Theo makes use of the revelations contained in the diary to confront Christian, as nicely as Alicia’s household and friends, such as her cousin, Paul Rose, and her aunt, Lydia. Through this, Theo identifies that some thing Alicia overheard her father pronouncing when she used to be a toddler resulted in Alicia’s psychological death, a transformative second that resulted in her hatred of her father and in her due to this fact being succesful of murder.
With this insight, Theo believes he is aware why Alicia identifies with Alcestis: Like the tragic character, a man betrayed Alicia, a man who valued some other existence over hers. He confronts Alicia with his theory. Alicia starts offevolved speakme and exhibits the fact about the night time of Gabriel’s murder. Her stalker broke in and tied her up. According to Alicia, when Gabriel got here home, the stalker ambushed him, tied him up, shot him six times, and left. However, this story does no longer fit the police’s evidence—someone shot Gabriel 5 times—and Theo doesn’t accept as true with it.
Theo returns to The Grove the subsequent day planning to confront Alicia about her dishonesty however when he arrives, he’s instructed that Alicia is in a coma—she overdosed. Theo believes that any person has intentionally given her a deadly dose of morphine and informs Lazarus. Lazarus calls the police, instructing Theo to locate Alicia’s diary for evidence. The police suspect Christian (Theo has in the interim printed Christian’s previous secret remedy of Alicia). In fact, Theo is the man or woman who administered the morphine.The narrative suggests up till this factor that the subplot of Kathy’s infidelity is taking vicinity in the present-day, in the historical past of the principal plot—Theo’s investigation into Alicia’s silence. However, the narrative displays that the subplot of Kathy’s affair took vicinity six years earlier—and that the man Kathy was once having an affair with used to be Gabriel. Theo was once Alicia’s stalker in the weeks earlier than the murder. He observed Gabriel to his house, planning to kill him. That’s the place he noticed Alicia.
A last diary entry of Alicia’s—written earlier than the morphine took effect—reveals the truth. Alicia suspected as quickly as he arrived at the Grove that Theo was once her stalker. Alicia confirms her suspicion by using Theo’s response to her false account of the night time of the murder. She allowed Theo to provide her a deadly overdose due to the fact she nonetheless feels responsible for Gabriel’s death. On the night time of the murder, Theo tied up each Alicia and Gabriel. He then provided Gabriel a choice: both die himself or let Alicia die. When Gabriel selected to live, Theo fired a shot in the air and left. Unbeknownst to him, Theo had reawakened the trauma of Alicia’s feeling that her father wished she had died in her mother’s place. Mentally broken, she shot her husband.
Theo is unable to locate Alicia’s diary and is unaware that this last entry exists, however he congratulates himself on having achieved the proper factor with the aid of attempting to assist Alicia, whom he had no longer intended to quit up insane and incarcerated. He receives a job provide as the director of some other institution. Kathy is depressed at the demise of her lover, however neither she nor Theo has admitted to the affair. The novel ends as the police arrive, armed with Alicia’s diary. Theo accepts that the time has come to pay the fee for his actions. Ultimately, it is Alicia’s diary that exhibits the fact and will carry Theo to justice.
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