“The Patron Saint of Liars” by Ann Patchett (post 3): The story of protagonist’s dissociative fugue, a symptom of multiple personality

Plot

Rose, a married young woman, is shocked to find she is pregnant. Without informing her husband of her pregnancy or plans, she drives out-of-state to a home for unwed mothers, where she marries the groundskeeper, they raise her daughter, Cecilia, and Rose takes over as chief institutional cook.

About fifteen years later, Rose’s first husband, having finally discovered her whereabouts, arrives to inform Rose that her mother has died. But since he had sent Rose a letter saying that he was coming, she has already driven away to parts unknown (perhaps to start a third life story).

Dissociative Fugue

This psychological symptom is seen in persons with multiple personality. In a typical scenario, an adult who has just had a psychological shock travels to a location where people don’t know her and establishes a new life under a new identity, since she has amnesia for her former identity. 

At first glance, the plot here would seem atypical in that Rose still knows her name is Rose, but if she had seen herself as the very same Rose who was already married, would she have committed bigamy? Apparently, there were two “Rose” personalities, the first Rose, who liked nothing better than to drive her car to various and sundry places, and the second Rose who liked nothing better than to be the head cook at a home for unwed mothers.

Rose has dissociative amnesia, but describes it in her own words:

“I’m not like you,” she said quietly. “I don’t think about things the way you do…You think I’m holding things in, fighting them back. The truth is, I don’t ever think about the past…I’d do just about anything in the world to avoid thinking about it. The past should stay behind you, where it belongs” (1, pp. 328-329).

Comment

Since Rose calls herself a “liar for the rest of my life” (1, p. 13), and the title of the novel highlights “liars,” the author may have thought of her, not as having multiple personality, but as a liar. People with unrecognized multiple personality are often thought of as liars.

For previous discussions, search “lying” and “dissociative fugue.”

1. Ann Patchett. The Patron Saint of Liars [1992]. New York, Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.