The Silent Patient
By: Alex Michaelides / Narrated By: Jack Hawkins, Louise Brealey
Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
The Oofa at the end saves a slog
What could be better for Halloween than a dark and twisty psychological thriller?!? EsPECially when suggested by a friend; esPECially when this was on my mom’s Long List of audiobooks to possibly listen to for her Birthday Listens this year? In the end, it didn’t make the cut for Birthday Listening, but here I was once again given a chance to give it a good ol’ fashioned GO!
Now y’all know I’m terrrrrrible about Thrillers, they’re kinda sorta not my genre as I haaaaate the whole edge-of-the-seat thing, especially as characters in Thrillers often do stupid things that take a person’s breath away. And if you stay at the end of this book, you’ll hear a Q & A sessions with author Michaelides where he says he doesn't get how his book, The Silent Patient, has been dubbed a psychological thriller when actually all he was going for was Tell A Good Solid Story.
Well, good, cuz there was no breathless anticipation on this end as I slogged through the thankfully less than 9 hours of the audiobook.
Let’s get narration out of the way. Fortunately, Louise Brealey did Alicia’s voice from her diary. And fortunately, Alicia is indeed a silent patient. Cuz Jack Hawkins can’t deliver a female voice to save his life. I’da hated to hear Alicia for 8 hours being butchered. As it was, I couldn't stand psychiatrist Theo’s wife Kathy, and she WAS a major character. Add to that he turns whiny Theo into WHINY THEO, and I was oh so over both the narration and the book.
Okay, are we done with narration?
Yup, let’s move on, and I’ll try to give you the gist without giving up any spoilers. And believe me, the twist and Oofa-Moment at the end saved the day for me to the point this was aaaaaaaalmost a decent listen.
We start with artist Alicia’s diary entry where we get that she’s a talented and happy, tho’ somewhat emotionally unstable, woman. Happy Pappy love love love love for her husband Gabriel. And then we go to where cops go to their house after gunshots are reported, and Alicia is found quiet, utterly mute, and Gabriel is found bound and shot five times in the face. There is a great outcry as Alicia speaks not another word but does indeed find it in herself to paint a final self-portrait. How heartless! Still, her muteness is unyielding, and rather than a long prison sentence, she’s remanded to The Grove, a place for the criminally insane.
Theo has moved mountains to take a place as a psychiatrist at The Grove, a place that is soon to go under; it’s all in an effort to work with Alicia. His involvement with her draws him deeper into her case, and soon he’s off and interviewing relatives and friends of Alicia, like a detective, but he’s saying it’s all part of an effort to better understand her/treat her. We’re supposed to be holding our breath as he digs himself in deeper and deeper, and we’re all, I assume, supPOSed to be feeling kinda dizzy at how his personal life is spiraling out of control also. Michaelides uses some questionable writing practices as he changes tenses within the writing, making things immediate then drawing back then going immediate again then drawing back. I wound up a little annoyed.
Then too, Theo was just plain annoying. I don’t think it was unreliable narrator crud so much as it was just plain unlikable character. I just couldn’t feel for him as things were getting out of control, and he spent a good deal lying. Michaelides spends a great deal of time on how traumatic Theo’s childhood was until he left home at 18, so I kept tryyyyyying to cut him slack, give him the benefit of the doubt. But to no avail; he just came off as a lying, self-pitying jerk. With his marriage on the rocks, he just turned into a puddle of drug-addicted rage that I could NOT feel anything for.
Things progress at work, where altogether toooo much time is given to a single patient, Alicia, to where you’d think there were no other patients on the ward. We do get to know a single other woman there, but for the most part it was as tho’ the staff just sat around and smoked. There’s backstabbing, with Theo being the worst offender, a liar, and a weasel as he posits himself as a strong to-your-face kinda dude, when he’s actually running to Mama every time he has a problem. And he’s constantly promising he won’t do something then naturally turns around and does it. This is not intrepid behavior, it’s grossly unprofessional. Plus, it’s annoying as hell in a main character.
Things unravel, then they go from bad to worse, and there’s some lazy plotting thrown in. But as mentioned before, I (NATURALLY!) did NOT see the final twist coming. We understand the whodunnit, but the why was very cool.
But after so much time feeling annoyed, I kinda sorta felt it was my due to have a good and sound twist. That said, however, I can see that I’m in the minority tho’ the negative reviewers were quite vocal about their whole: What’s the hype all about? refrains.
One can tell this is a Mega Book cuz the Amazon page is all fraught with Kudos and Quotes Taken from Raving Reviews. Nope, I think it presents mental health professionals in a truly seedy light, and from it, one would be forced to reconsider getting help from said people.
And that’s never a good thing, as we’re all nuts.
So when all is said and done, I’m kinda feeling bad that I haven’t coughed up any spoilers. Have I just damned you to 8 hours and 43 minutes where 8 hours and 40 minutes are unbearable? I’m soooooo sorry. And for that, I canNOT glibly toss off a You’re Welcome.
I should be shot…
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.