Joyce Carol Oates’ “Jack of Spades”: novelist and pseudonym are alternate personalities—one even tries to kill the other—but reviewers miss the diagnosis.

Indeed, the novel ends as the novelist is about to commit suicide, since it is the only way he can think of to kill his alternate personality.

And the protagonist’s multiple personality has been blatant throughout the novel. Andrew, a novelist, often hears his pseudonymous personality, Jack of Spades, as a voice in his head. Jack often speaks out loud, alternating with Andrew, which sounds to Andrew’s wife like two persons in conversation behind the closed door of Andrew’s study. And Jack often makes Andrew do things that are out-of-character.

Andrew also has the typical memory gaps of multiple personality, caused when one personality does not remember something that happened when the other personality was out. For example, Andrew finds himself holding a drink that he has no memory of pouring (Jack did). Or Andrew’s wife has definitely told him about his father’s failing health, but Andrew has no memory of those conversations.

The writing processes of Andrew and Jack are also quite different. Andrew writes slowly, struggling with outlines, etc., while Jack writes fast, leaving Andrew with amnesia for most of Jack’s writing process.

In short, the multiple personality in this novel is not subtle. It is the main business.

Why, then, do reviews of this novel fail to mention multiple personality, and speak nonspecifically about the novelist’s “descent into madness”?

“Jack of Spades is a fast-paced read filled with high drama and the

expertly-rendered delineation of a writer’s descent into madness” (2).

“While the mild-mannered [Andrew] Rush is merely indignant at being accused, Jack of Spades wants revenge, and so begins his slow descent into madness” (3).

The reason is that unless a novel itself refers to disturbed behavior as multiple personality, reviewers often fail to distinguish between schizophrenia and multiple personality, and call any disturbed behavior “madness.” But in the psychiatric diagnostic manual (DSM-5), schizophrenia and multiple personality (called “dissociative identity disorder”) are completely different, and found in two completely separate chapters. Schizophrenia is a psychosis. Multiple personality, a dissociative disorder, is not. I have discussed the differences in past posts.

Why doesn’t this novel refer to its obvious portrayal of multiple personality as multiple personality? As noted in my previous post on Joyce Carol Oates, she tends to think of having an alternate personality as ordinary psychology. And perhaps she, like most reviewers, tends to think of any disturbed behavior as “madness,” failing to distinguish between psychosis and dissociation.

On a lighter note, I think this novel only poses as a tale of suspense. To me, it seems like it was probably meant as an inside joke among novelists, especially the parts where it refers to Stephen King and other male bestselling novelists by name, and implies that they all steal their ideas from one unknown, unpublished, female writer.

If you take the title, “Jack of Spades,” and change Jack to Joke and Spade to Shovel, then you have a joke about how novelists dig up their ideas. This joke would appeal to novelists, because they are often not sure where their ideas come from.

1. Joyce Carol Oates. Jack of Spades: A Tale of Suspense. New York, The Mysterious Press, 2015.

2. Anderson, Eric K. (2015) "Review of Joyce Carol Oates's Jack of Spades," Bearing Witness: Joyce Carol Oates Studies: Vol. 2, Article 4. http://repository.usfca.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=jcostudies

3. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/joyce-carol-oates/jack-of-spades/