“Iron Lake” by William Kent Krueger: Characters in first novel of Cork O’Connor mystery series lack common multiple personality symptoms

I was prompted to read this novel by a recent column in The New York Times Book Review in which the author is quoted as saying of his protagonist: “We’ve been friends for thirty years now...I have come to appreciate him more and more with the passing years, when I discover all of the things that he’s capable of, and all of the ways in which he’s all too human” (1). As is common for novelists, he talks as though his protagonist were a real person, and not merely a creation whose every thought, feeling, and behavior he provides and controls.

However, neither the protagonist nor any other character in this novel (2) is ever surprised or challenged by a voice in his head or a “part” inside himself that has a contrary attitude, to mention two common symptoms of multiple personality that novelists commonly think everyone has, due to the novelist’s own psychology. And the lack of such psychological symptoms makes the characters seem relatively flat and two dimensional; although, their absence from this first novel doesn’t mean they don’t appear in later novels of this successful series, which I may or may not get to read.

1. Elizabeth Egan. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/books/review/fox-creek-william-kent-krueger.html

2. William Kent Krueger. Iron Lake. 20th Anniversary Edition. New York, Atria, 1998/2019.