BASIC CONCEPTS

— When novelists claim they do not invent it, but hear voices and find stories in their head, they are neither joking nor crazy.

— When characters, narrators, or muses have minds of their own and occasionally take over, they are alternate personalities.

— Alternate personalities and memory gaps, but no significant distress or dysfunction, is a normal version of multiple personality.

— normal Multiple Personality Trait (MPT) (core of Multiple Identity Literary Theory), not clinical Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

— The normal version of multiple personality is an asset in fiction writing when some alternate personalities are storytellers.

— Multiple personality originates when imaginative children with normal brains have unassuaged trauma as victim or witness.

— Psychiatrists, whose standard mental status exam fails to ask about memory gaps, think they never see multiple personality.

— They need the clue of memory gaps, because alternate personalities don’t acknowledge their presence until their cover is blown.

— In novels, most multiple personality, per se, is unnoticed, unintentional, and reflects the author’s view of ordinary psychology.

— Multiple personality means one person who has more than one identity and memory bank, not psychosis or possession.

— Euphemisms for alternate personalities include parts, pseudonyms, alter egos, doubles, double consciousness, voice or voices.

— Multiple personality trait: 90% of fiction writers; possibly 30% of public.

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Saturday, March 12, 2022

“The Christie Affair” by Nina de Gramont


In this novelization of Agatha Christie’s famous 11-day disappearance, the narrator assumes Agatha hears multiple personality voices, an apparent reflection of the author’s own psychology.


“No, no, no, no.”


“Who hasn’t heard that word…rebelling against events unfolding against our dearest…wishes?”  The narrator assumes Agatha was hearing these voices in regard to her imminent divorce from her husband…


“Agatha gave herself over to utter collapse — falling into…wounded pieces” (1, pp. 51-52).


Parts or “pieces” may be a euphemism for alternate personalities.  Voices heard by sane persons may be voices of alternate personalities.


1. Nina de Gramont. The Christie Affair. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2022.


NOTE: The rest of the novel did not hold my interest.

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