“The President is Missing” (post 2) by Bill Clinton (post 4) and James Patterson (post 7): White House traitor has gratuitous multiple personality

This patriarchal thriller has one preachy hero (the President) and three victimized bitches (assassin, Vice President, Chief of Staff).

In the whole novel, there are only two, very brief, psychologically revealing passages: 1. the assassin’s changeable sense of identity is described, and 2. the Chief of Staff switches from one personality to another.

The first passage, from the beginning of the novel, was quoted in the previous post. The second passage, from the end of the novel, is when the President (first-person narrator) confronts his Chief of Staff, and she switches to her traitorous, alternate personality:

“ ‘How could you do this, Carrie?’ ”

“ ‘Says the man who gets to be president.’ ”

“The words come from a voice I don’t recognize, a voice I’ve never heard, a part of Carolyn that has managed to elude me during our years together. Her head rises from her hands, and she looks at me squarely, her face twisted up in agony and bitterness in a way I’ve never seen before. ‘Says the man who didn’t see his political career tanked just for saying a dirty word on a live mike ’ ” (1, p. 474).

The above is a classic description of a woman who switches from one personality to another: She briefly hides her face in her hands during the actual moment of switching, then her alternate personality speaks, with its different voice, different attitude, and different facial expression. The President, who has never seen this personality before, finds the encounter eerie.

Since the novel’s two brief passages that suggest multiple personality are neither intentional character development (the author did not intend to portray these characters as having multiple personality) nor necessary to the plot, they are examples of gratuitous multiple personality. They are in the novel only because they reflect the author’s own psychology. (Search “gratuitous” for examples in other novels.)

1. Bill Clinton and James Patterson. The President is Missing. London, Century, 2018.