Ponder: The Silent Patient

The opening paragraph on the cover flap for this thriller novel by Alex Michaelides ©2019  describes its premise quite succinctly:

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

The book is written from the viewpoint of criminal psychotherapist Dr. Theo Faber who is intent, almost obsessed, on getting Alicia to speak. The setting for this book is mainly the facility for the criminally insane but also included is Alicia's home before the crime is committed. Both settings are creepy and that ambiance is well imbued throughout. The author describes the circumstances so well that, as I was reading, I could picture each scene vividly in my mind. I kept thinking "I can be brave enough to imagine this in a book, but no way, no how, am I going to see watch this in a theatre if it is ever produced as a movie!" (I did some web-searching and learned that there are plans in the works to make The Silent Patient into a movie.) Whoever composes the music to accompany this storyline as a movie will have fun. (Think Jaws or Psycho.) Author Alex Michaelides got his MA in screenwriting at the American Film Institute in Los Angles so it is not surprising that his first novel reads as a work readily converted to a movie. 

Plot twists were unforeseen and sporadic shockers made me jump. I started reading in the early morning and did not go to bed until I finished it in the wee hours way beyond midnight the following day. It was spellbinding – a real page turner. Suspense and the desire to read more were created by the compelling situation and not by a need to clarify confusion or reveal omissions. Alicia's final painting before her incarceration as a murderer was titled Alcestis. It is described as a self-portrait of "Alicia naked in the studio, in front  of a blank canvas, painting with a blood red paintbrush." The expression on her face "defied interpretation" and the canvas is therefore thought to be "a painting about silence" [Ch. 20]. Author Alex Michaelides' allusion to the lesser known Greek play, Alcestis, by Euripides appears to be a natural outcome of his background. Alcestis was a princess in Greek mythology, known for her love of her husband Admetus, and willing to die in his place when Death came to call. Michaelides was born in Cyprus to a Greek-Cyprio father and an English mother and studied English literature at Cambridge University.

The cover design of The Silent Patient also stimulated my curiosity. The faded background image of a woman with a torn paper sliver across her mouth indicative of allowing the words to flow from it seems to reflect the main theme of the book to me as elective mutism. In trying to investigate who the artist was, I came across the name Ivan Ozerov as contributor for the woman image and Anne Twomey for the overall jacket design. I found little further information on either person but stumbled upon an article about jacket designs in other countries. This debut novel for Alex Michaelides has been published all over the world and is available in more than 40 territories. I present the following cover images as samples given in https://celadonbooks.com/the-silent-patient-covers-from-around-the-world/ which also states.

By all accounts, The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides is a runaway hit in the US. Since publishing in February [2019], it’s been on The New York Times bestseller list for 22 weeks (and counting) [as of 8/25/2019]; it’s stayed at the #1 spot on Goodreads all year; it’s spent 22 weeks on the Amazon charts; and it’s one of the most downloaded audiobooks on Apple Books for 2019. But what readers might not realize is that this edge-of-your-seat thriller has also been published all over the world.

The Germany, Estonia, and France covers (first row), like the United States, focus on the mouth of the woman as blocking words from exiting. They seem to focus on the person and, in my opinion, best reflect the novel content. In the second row, the white austere cover of the United Kingdom reflects the sterility of a hospital setting, perhaps hinting as a concentration on scientific/medical treatment of the patient. But the novel does expand to childhood settings both of the patient and those who would help her.  The smeared red of the Lithuania cover calls attention to the crime itself, highlighting the five bullet holes to the face. This is indeed the initiation point of the book but it is not only the crime itself that is the focus. Serbia's black and orange cover with the hanging pendent light  speaks to me of an interrogation setting where knowing the why of the crime is of tantamount importance. The fifth and six covers are least representative of the book to me. The United States cover best captures the book. The mystery of a woman fading into non-existence is what needs to be ferreted out and then brought to the foreground of understanding.

The characters are complex but there are not so many of them that I found it difficult to keep track. There is Alicia's husband, art manager, cousin, aunt, and briefly her parents from her childhood days. For Theo there is his wife, colleagues and his parents also from his childhood years. Background is important for both main characters. Why does Alicia kill? Why does Theo want to be a psychotherapist? He makes a statement from his boyhood, "Somehow grasping at vanishing snowflakes is like grasping at happiness: an act of possession that instantly gives way to nothing." [Ch. 3]

My last two reads – The Library Book (post dated 8/8/2019) and Unsheltered (post dated 8/20/2019) were books highly rated on Amazon and other reputed sources but required discipline and persistence for me to complete. But I am happy to say, I got heavily and eagerly engaged in The Silent Patient and have enough certainty to recommend it to others. I give it five stars! ★★★★★