“Olive Kitteridge” (post 2) by Elizabeth Strout: talking to, and the interaction between, “inner selves” (alternate personalities)

This novel is a string of thirteen short stories. In the first one, “Pharmacy,” the pharmacist is Henry Kitteridge. Olive is his wife.

The focal relationship is between Henry and Denise, who works in Henry’s pharmacy. Henry has platonic, protective feelings for Denise, especially after she becomes a widow.

The most interesting psychological event is when Denise says to Henry, “I talk to you in my head all the time…Sorry.”

“For what?” [Henry asks].

“For talking to you in my head all the time.” [Denise replies.]

What is going on? According to the narrator, “their inner selves brushing up against the other” (1, pp. 24-25.)

Comment: When nonpsychotic people hear, and/or, talk to, people in their head, the people in their head are usually alternate personalities (inner selves). I would guess that the author had sometimes experienced her own inner selves (characters) (alternate personalities) as brushing up against each other.

1. Elizabeth Strout. Olive Kitteridge. New York, Random House Trade Paperback, 2008.

Added later same day: I have read the next story and looked in Wikipedia to see where the rest of the stories were going, and have decided I don't want to go there.