The Silent Patient is a 2019 psychological thriller novel by Alex Michaelides. The work is his debut novel.
Alicia Berenson, an artist, becomes a national news topic when she murders her husband with six shots to the face. For the next few days, she is unable to communicate, and the only thing she can do is lock herself away in her atelier and paint a self-portrait she calls Alcestis. Condemned by the jury and public opinion, she is left on a mental hospital and refuses to speak again.
Years later, Theo Faber, a man fascinated with the case, takes a job at the Grove Mental Hospital where Alicia is to become her therapist in an attempt to heal her and learn about the case.
The book was released to vastly positive reception.
Tropes
- The Atoner: Theo never wanted Alicia to kill Gabriel. His decision to try to treat her is his way to atone for the fact that his revenge on Gabriel cost Alicia her life.
- Awful Wedded Life: Theo is almost always working, and as a result, his relationship with Kathy grows more and more strained and he realizes she is having an affair. In the present and after causing the death of her lover, their relationship is even worse as she can't even fake still loving him, and spends her days depressed, rotting away at their house.
- Bittersweet Ending: Very bitter. Alicia is left in a coma by Theo; Theo's decision to take revenge on Gabriel only leaves behind the destruction of three people's lives (Alicia, Gabriel, and Kathy), and staying with Kathy leaves him on a miserable marriage; and the Grove is closing down. The only silver lining is that, thanks to Alicia's diary, Theo is caught for his crimes.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: Alicia's diary sets several important plot points from her POV from the beginning, until it finally gets to Theo's side of the story at the middle of the book, revealing to him her story. Then Alicia uses it again to write down Theo's crimes before she goes into a coma.
- Dramatic Irony: The final part of the book starts with the reveal that Alicia wrote about Theo in her diary, full on with the accusation that he tried to kill her and that he was the one who was stalking her. As the POV returns to Theo, the reader reads it knowing he is running out of time, and even his quest to find the diary would just end with his own implication.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: In the final chapter of Part 4, the fact that in Kathy's lover's house, Theo will describe various aspects of the house like a shack in the back garden, a door that is left unlocked, and that the man's wife is a painter, hinting that the lover is Gabriel and the wife is Alicia just a few pages before the actual reveal.
- Foreshadowing: Theo briefly considers killing Kathy's lover. He later turns out to be involved with his murder, though he says he never intended to actually get him killed.
- Ignored Expert: Ruth, Theo's former therapist and mentor, advises Theo to leave Kathy after he finds she is cheating on her, saying Kathy is probably addicted to the highs of relationship drama. Theo acknowledges that would probably be for the best, but he refuses to give up on her.
- Meta Twist: The scenes about Theo and his relationship with Kathy, who is cheating on him, are all set in the past, not the present, despite being interspersed with present day plotlines. This is the backstory of how he came to stalk Alicia and ultimately cause the death of Gabriel.
- Mythical Motifs: The story of Alcestis is a Greek tragedy/myth that tells of a man, Admetus, who condemned his wife to death in his place, only for her to later be brought back by Heracles but be unwilling to say a single word anymore. Alicia names her self-portrait Alcestis and over the course of the story, Theo learns of the story and tries to connect the dots about its relation to Alicia. The final reveal of the night of Gabriel's murder reveals that something like that happened. Theo put a gun to the couple and asked Gabriel to choose which one he would shoot, which Gabriel chose Alicia to die instead of him; Theo let Alicia go instead, having proven that he doesn't love her. Alicia then takes the gun, reliving a traumatic memory where her father wanted her to die instead of her mother and considering herself killed by Gabriel, and kills him and doesn't talk anymore.
- Returning to the Scene: Theo considers his attempt to return to Alicia something like this, but he assures the reader that he is genuinely trying to help Alicia.
- Unreliable Narrator: In his narration, not only Theo mixes up past and present events, but he also keeps it hidden from the reader that he was the man stalking Alicia, and that he knows exactly what happened the night she killed Gabriel. His references to "understand what happened" do not relate to what really happen at the night she killed him, but rather what psychological burden she was under that caused her to kill him.
- Villain Protagonist: Both Theo and Alicia are guilty of Gabriel's death. Theo, in a mix of a breakdown and vengeance, sets out to destroy Gabriel's marriage, making a sadistic game to prove that he would give up on Alicia. He didn't know Alicia had a history of mental instability and that said game would make her kill Gabriel. While Theo didn't want that to end Gabriel's life, he is guilty of stalking, breaking and entering, and terrorizing a couple.
