The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

 

Publisher’s Description

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

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him…

Favorite Snippets From The Book

" I need to open my eyes and look- and be aware of life as it is happening, and not simply how I want it to be."

" I didn't want to die. Not yet; not when I hadn't lived."

" You become increasingly comfortable with madness - and not just the madness of others, but your own. We're all crazy, I believe, just in different ways."

" Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later in uglier ways."

"There's so much pain everywhere, and we just close our eyes to it."

"The development of our personalities doesn't take place in isolation, but in relationship with others - we are shaped and completed by unseen, unremembered forces; namely our parents."

"Choosing a lover is a lot like choosing a therapist. We need to ask ourselves, is this someone who will be honest with me, listen to criticism, admit making mistakes, and not promise the impossible?"

Product Details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Celadon Books; First Edition (February 5, 2019)

Language ‏ : ‎ English 

Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250301696

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250301697

Available at Amazon

About the Author

Alex Michaelides was born and raised in Cyprus. He has an M.A. in English literature from Trinity College, Cambridge University, and an M.A. in screenwriting from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. The Silent Patient was his first novel and was the biggest-selling debut in the world in 2019. It spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list and sold in a record-breaking forty-nine countries. Alex lives in London.