What would happen if novelists publicly announced that they had multiple personality? Some have, but few take them seriously.

As previously discussed in this blog, a few writers have—more or less, directly or indirectly—gone public. But when J. M. Barrie spoke publicly about his alternate personality, it was treated as a joke. When Sue Grafton said that she had alternate personalities, the public mostly ignored it. When Margaret Atwood wrote that all fiction writers have a split personality, and when she, Philip Roth, Dean Koontz, and others published novels that featured multiple personality, few made much of it.

The public probably doesn’t believe that novelists have multiple personality, because they think it would interfere with a person’s ability to function. And since J. M. Barrie, Sue Grafton, Margaret Atwood, Philip Roth, and Dean Koontz have obviously functioned very well—indeed, at a very high level—how could they have had multiple personality? The answer is that most people with multiple personality are normal. And some are gifted.