The Good Patient : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written, exceptional first novel
Review: A riveting novel about twenty-eight-year-old Darien Gilbertson who engages in self destructive acts like self-mutilation and excessive drinking because of dark secrets in her past that she has repressed. Sarcastic, brilliant, witty, rebellious, and vulnerable, Darien at first goes out of her way not to cooperate with Dr. Rachel Lindholm, the savvy psychiatrist her husband, Robert, has persuaded her to see. Gradually, however, she moves into a trusting relationship with the doctor and begins to peel away the layers covering the secrets. Grim as this may sound, it is more than that: complex and disturbing, but with plenty of humor, and so beautifully written, with not one wasted word, that one is in awe. Vivid images, real characters, and pitch perfect dialogue are just some of the attributes of this stellar debut. We grow to care very much for Darien. Also, in the midst of the angst and darkness, this novel is above all a love story: both Darien and Robert must learn how to love. An earned resolution at the end.

Rating:
Summary: Good Twin, Bad Twin
Review: I had trouble with the basic narrative style, characterization, and psychological premise. I picked the novel because a number of my bright young college students have revealed that they self-mutilate. Several have produced research papers on the topic. I was interested in a fictional approach to a character who self-mutilates, including methods that none of the student research papers revealed; this character smashes her own bones until they fracture.

The psychological premise is that a severely traumatic experience in childhood becomes sealed away, and only a truly brilliant and "good mother" therapist can help to unravel the layers of denial revealed hitherto only by the patient's self-mutilation. Bits of the narrator's past are revealed in brief fragments as the novel leaps from past to present, location to location in a style I find too "creative writing workshop" to hold my interest. I think the novel would be better served with a more coherent narrative line; the deep dark secret(s) could be revealed up front and the horror would be equally severe.

Although we are not exactly meant to like the narrator--after all, she hates herself--the dichotemy she's created between her "good self" and "bad self" is common to many, if not most, high-achieving and extremely bright young men and women, particularly those with a rather horrid family base (or lack of family base). Many who self-mutilate (or shoplift, or get into abusive relationships, or attempt suicide, or cry for help in myriad other manners) fit this profile. I would have had more empathy with the narrator if her entire persona--and the plot line--were not based on her "deep dark secret."

Rating:
Summary: Dark and disturbing -- hooked me from its first page!
Review: I was duly impressed with Kristin Waterfield Duisberg's The Good Patient. The dark, compelling and disturbing tale of Darien captured me from the very beginning. The mounting suspense as Dr. Lindholm, Darien's psychiatrist, unravels the reasons that have triggered the protagonist's compulsive and self-destructive behavior is haunting and poignant. The Good Patient is a harrowing and thought-provoking novel that should be savored like fine wine. A wonderful read...