“Hidden” (post 2) by Fern Michaels: A second character hears a voice in her head, and a third character makes a multiple personality joke

“But then a little voice in her head reminded her that if they didn’t rectify the predicament they were in, she might be shopping at these stores for the rest of her life. That is, if they didn’t go to prison” (1, p. 202).

“How are you going to explain your presence in a showroom after hours? You had a blackout and don’t know how you got here?” (1, p. 297).

Comment: Memory gaps (blackouts) are a cardinal symptom of multiple personality (a.k.a. "dissociative identity disorder"): when one personality has amnesia for where another personality went and/or what they did.

But this novel is not intentionally about multiple personality. So why are these things in the novel?

The presence of gratuitous symptoms (voices of alternate personalities) and jokes about multiple personality probably reflects the novelist's own psychology, what I call the novelist's multiple personality trait.

1. Fern Michaels. Hidden. New York, Zebra Books, 2021. 

“Hidden” (post 1) by Fern Michaels: “a voice in his head shouted STOP!”

“If Gaines had learned one thing in his years of law enforcement, it was always to trust his gut…He was supposed to go down the side of a particular pier, but a voice in his head shouted, STOP!  He ducked around a corner and pulled out his weapon…had he not listened to that voice in his head, he would have been the one lying in a pool of blood…” (1, p. 58).

Comment: Since the thesis of this blog is that most novelists have multiple personality trait, I would guess that whenever this author almost makes a mistake while writing one of her novels, the voice of a literary alternate personality in her head shouts STOP!

1. Fern Michaels. Hidden. New York, Zebra Books, 2021.

Most Persons with Multiple Personality are, at times, Transgender

“At least half of all MPD patients have cross-gender alternate personalities. In female MPD patients, child, adolescent, or adult male personalities are found in about half of cases. In male MPD patients, female alternate personalities appear to be present in about two-thirds to three-quarters of all cases. These opposite gender personalities often cross-dress and may be responsible for the unisex look adopted by many MPD patients. Female MPD patients frequently have short hair and wear clothing…that allows their male alternate personalities to emerge comfortably…In both sexes, cross-gender alternate personalities may be sexually active with either heterosexual or homosexual orientations, leading to much confusion” (1, pp. 110-111).

Comment: Thus, it may be an ignorant question as to whether a person is “really” transgender, or do they “really” have multiple personality disorder (a.k.a “dissociative identity disorder”).

The idea that most persons are, indisputably, either transgender or multiple personality may be based on ignorance of the fact that most multiple personality is, at times, transgender.

One clear difference between the two conditions is that MPD is often denied by the person who has it, and it often takes special expertise to diagnose it, but persons who are transgender may insist on their self-diagnosis, just as alternate personalities usually insist on what sex they are, and would consider you a fool to contradict them.

In short, a person who insists they are transgender might be a person with multiple personality, one of whose cross-gender personalities has taken control all or most of the time. In some, or perhaps many, such cases, sex-change surgery could be appropriate, but I have never been involved in that kind of clinical situation and am not an expert on transgender, per se.

1. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.

“Lies and Sorcery” (post 3) by Elsa Morante: Opinion from a biography of the author, based on an earlier translation

“In the end, notwithstanding the admiration one might feel for the ambitious enterprise, House of Liars remains a strangely anachronistic and lugubrious novel. The reader is not drawn to any of the characters, nor does he or she care much what happens to any of them. No matter that it was willed, the writing is irritatingly precious, the plot is too convoluted and contrived to be credible. The result is a kind of artificial airlessness…"(2, p. 79).

Comment: My post 2, based on the new translation of this novel (1), highlights the issue relevant to this blog—multiple personality—which appears to have been unrecognized by both Elsa Morante and the biographer. So I will have no further posts on this novel. But this blog is not a book review, and you might love this novel in its new translation.

1. Elsa Morante. Lies and Sorcery (1948 novel). Trans. from Italian by Jenny McPhee. New York, New York Review Books, 2023, 775 pages.

2. Lily Tuck. Woman of Rome: A Life of Elsa Morante. New York, Harper Perennial, 2009.

3. Wikipedia. “House of Liars” [title of previous translation].

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Liars

“Lies and Sorcery” (post 2) by Elsa Morante: Both Anna and her mother appear to have multiple personality

“She [Anna’s mother] often spoke to herself at home also, almost as if she were unburdening herself to an invisible friend, telling her of the injustices she suffered and her cruel fate. Her habitual crises became increasingly violent, and overcome by a furious hatred for herself, she beat herself, banging her fists and head against the wall. Anna would hold her to stop her from injuring herself…‘And you,’ [Anna’s mother] exclaimed, staring off into space, ‘why are you looking at me? What do you want from me?” (1, p. 118).

Comment: Anna’s mother seems to be talking to, and looking at, an alternate personality. Whose [Anna’s mother’s or the alternate personality’s] fists and head are being banged against the wall? And by whom? Her, or her alternate personality?

“Your wish has come true,” she [Anna] told herself. Didn’t you always know that you and he were destined to meet…So why are you so astonished? (1, p. 137).

Comment: Italicized third-person suggests this is probably the voice of an alternate personality in Anna’s head.

1. Elsa Morante. Lies and Sorcery (1948 novel). Trans. from Italian by Jenny McPhee. New York, New York Review Books, 2023, 775 pages.

2. Wikipedia. “House of Liars” [previous translation]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Liars

“Lies and Sorcery” (post 1) by Elsa Morante: Introduction by Unreliable Narrator

“Lying’s poisonous evil slithers among the branches of my family tree…But you mustn’t hold this against me or my story, as the whole point here is to gather reliable proof of my family’s long-inbred insanity…But to become a devotee and disciple of deception!…Such was my existence!…And although throughout this book you’ll come to know, dear reader, more than one character afflicted with our disease of delusion, you’ve already met the sickest character of them all—me, Elisa, the writer of this book…

“Perhaps by reconstructing my family’s story, I will finally be able to solve the mystery of my childhood as well as discover the truth behind all the other family myths…This is why I obey their voices and write. Who knows, perhaps with their help I may at last be able to leave this room (1, pp. 15-24).

Comment: Unreliable narrators may be a clue to multiple personality. Also search "lying" in this blog.

1. Elsa Morante. Lies and Sorcery (1948 novel). Trans. from Italian by Jenny McPhee. New York, New York Review Books, 2023, 775 pages. 

“Holly” (post 3) by Stephen King: “a colder version of Holly takes over”

Toward the end of this novel, “Holly approaches the vacant house at 91 Ridge Road…She steps briskly…and a colder version of Holly takes over. It’s the same one that threw all those loathsome china figurines into the fireplace at her mother’s house” (1, pp. 366-367).

Comment: The above talk about a different “version” of Holly is similar to the talk of her becoming “another girl,” quoted in post 1. It is multiple personality talk, since only persons with alternate personalities have alternate "versions” or other persons inside them, who can come out and take over.

Stephen King, who may have multiple personality trait (like most successful novelists), and so may have had similar subjective experiences, probably thought of Holly’s “versions” and alternate persons as ordinary psychology, not as something as allegedly rare as multiple personality. So unless he claims to have intentionally portrayed Holly as having multiple personality, I would not give him credit for it.

1. Stephen King. Holly. New York, Scribner, 2023

“Holly” (post 2) by Stephen King: Lexapro vs. Show, Don’t Tell

The protagonist, Holly (1), has appeared previously (2), but this latest book, with her as the title character, would be expected to include everything important.

Once again, she is said to be taking Lexapro (1, p. 61), a psychiatric antidepressant medication (3) used to treat patients with any of several different diagnoses, including depression and OCD.

However, I am almost finished reading this novel, and there has not been any scene showing Holly in psychiatric treatment, which violates the literary maxim, “Show, Don’t tell” (4). So I don’t know her psychiatrist’s specific diagnosis, what it was based on, and what kind of psychotherapy, if any, has been provided.

In addition to indications that Holly has multiple personality, discussed in post 1, this new novel says “romance at short notice” is Holly’s specialty:

“Holly tells Harris the car-theft story, which she has refined on the way over—like the little girl in the Saki story, romance at short notice is her specialty” (1, p. 298).

Comment: “Romance at short notice” is more consistent with multiple personality than with anything treated by Lexapro.

1. Stephen King. Holly. New York, Scribner, 2023

2. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_Gibney

3. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escitalopram

4. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show%2C_don't_tell 

STIGMA: Why few novelists acknowledge their having Multiple Personality, which they should destigmatize

“Holly” (post 1 ) by Stephen King: Making Sense of Multiple Hollys

“What if she started jibba-jabba-jibbering when talking to those boys?

  I wouldn’t, she thinks. That was another girl” (1, p. 65).

“In a growl utterly unlike her usual soft tone of voice, Holly says, ‘Because she told me’ ” (1, p. 85).

Comment: Holly is saying that her "jibba-jabba-jibbering" in the past was spoken by a different one of her personalities, “another girl.”

And “a growl utterly unlike her usual soft tone of voice” is the voice of another one of her personalities.

Therapists of persons with multiple personalities come to recognize the different personalities by their consistently different mannerisms, including their ways of talking and tone of voice.

It is difficult for Stephen King to be clear about what is going on above, because he hasn’t explicitly acknowledged the issue of multiple personality. But a reader aware of that issue can make sense of it.

1. Stephen King. Holly. New York, Scribner, 2023.

Prevalence: You’ve probably known someone, or read a novel by an author, who has Multiple Personality

Since the prevalence of multiple personality disorder (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder) is estimated by the American Psychiatric Association to be about 1.5% (1, p. 294), and the U.S.A. has about 333 million people, then about five million Americans probably have the clinical disorder, but are seen by otherwise good clinicians who don’t know how to diagnose it.

Many clinicians don’t even screen for memory gaps, which are usually not complained about, because patients have had them for years and may think everyone has them; or they sometimes have “amnesia for their amnesia.”

For some people, like the bestselling, prize-winning novelists discussed in this blog, a milder, non-clinical, mentally well version—what I call “multiple personality trait”—may become a major, creative asset.

1. American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). Arlington, VA, American Psychiatric Association, 2013. 

Novelist’s new awareness of "parts”—alternate personalities of multiple personality trait—is manifest in new wish for plural pronouns

“Yahya Bas, the hero of Guy Gunaratne’s new novel, “Mister, Mister,” is a tricky character to pin down. Is he an idiot, poet, jihadist or all of these at once?

“As Gunaratne answered this question and found Yahya’s voice, the author’s own self-conception evolved. ‘This book fundamentally changed how I think about my own identity,’ Gunaratne, who was born in Britain to Sri Lankan parents, said during a recent interview in central London. ‘This self-inquiry, which comes with an extended period of writing, led me to assert parts of myself that had gone unaffirmed.’ Now, Gunaratne identifies as nonbinary, and uses they/them pronouns” (1).

Comment: Many people with multiple personality have alternate personalities of more than one gender, and so are nonbinary.

1.Tobias Grey. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/07/books/mister-mister-guy-gunaratne.html 

“Mr. Mercedes” (post 3) by Stephen King: Holly’s confusing multiplicity of symptoms is a classic presentation of multiple personality disorder

Holly, in spite of her confusing array of dysfunctional symptoms (1, pp. 407-410), is surprisingly helpful in tracking down the villain. One of her symptoms—“self-directed dialogue” (1, p. 408)—is suggestive of conversations between alternate personalities, but other symptoms are compatible with multiple different diagnoses. This is a common clinical presentation of multiple personality disorder (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder):

“There is a patient profile that should suggest MPD. The core features of this profile are that these patients typically suffer from a profusion of psychiatric, neurological, and medical symptoms; have received a host of diagnoses, and are refractory to the standard treatments for these diagnoses. Unfortunately, this profusion of symptoms…usually obscures the underlying dissociative pathology, so that these patients often spend years in treatment for conditions they do not have” (2, pp. 57-58)

Comment: I have not seen above issues raised anywhere else (3).

1. Stephen King. Mr. Mercedes. New York, Scribner, 2014.

2. Frank W. Putnam MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.

3. Wikipedia. “Holly Gibney.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_Gibney 

“Mr. Mercedes” (post 2) by Stephen King: Why does the sane Hero, like the crazy Villain (see post 1), have opinionated “parts”

“ 'I get it,' Hodges says. He kneels beside her like a man getting ready to propose marriage in one of those romantic novels his ex-wife used to like. Part of him feels absurd. Mostly he doesn’t" (1, p. 274).

Comment: What the hero and the villain have in common is their author, Stephen King, who, like most novelists with multiple personality trait, would have personally experienced his own “parts,” which he came to think of as ordinary psychology.

But most people do not have any form of multiple personality, and so don’t have opinionated “parts” (alternate personalities).

1. Stephen King. Mr. Mercedes. New York, Scribner, 2014.

“Mr. Mercedes” (post 1) by Stephen King: “Parts”

“Inside each box is a pound of homemade plastic explosive…He hasn’t actually decided to use the plastic, but part of him wants to” (1, p. 106).

Comment: Persons with undiagnosed multiple personality often refer to their alternate personalities as “parts” of them that have minds of their own.

1. Stephen King. Mr. Mercedes. New York, Scribner, 2014.

Dissociation: Mechanism of Multiple Personality 

“What It Really Means to Dissociate” in New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/05/well/mind/dissociative-disorders.html

“The Hero of This Book” by Elizabeth McCracken: Puzzlingly inconsistent, humorous “novel” of daughter-mother relationship [see added note]

“I tried to surrender my dignity. I didn’t know you had any left, I could hear my mother say, she who loved jokes at my expense" (1, p. 70).

Comment: As discussed in past posts on other writers, italics are used to indicate that “I didn’t know you had any left” is heard—i.e., a voice in the head—not just an ordinary thought. And as previously discussed (search “voices” in this blog), when a mentally well, high-functioning person hears voices, they are often voices of alternate personalities, indicating that the person has multiple personality trait.

In general, the book’s overall aura of puzzling inconsistency—novel vs. memoir, loving vs. antagonistic relationship—may suggest multiple personality trait in the author and/or her mother. Search “puzzling inconsistency” in this blog for previous discussions.

I hope to refine my comments after I finish reading this book.

Added same day: I finished this book. Its ending adds to my sense of the narrator's changeable opinions and unreliability, which in and of itself might suggest that the author has multiple personality trait, since each one of the personalities may have its own point of view (although the regular, host personality is usually in touch with conventional reality).

I once knew a psychiatrist who suggested that multiple personality could be called "multiple reality."

In short, unreliable narrators may suggest that an author has multiple personality trait. Search "unreliable narrators" in this blog for previous discussions.

1. Elizabeth McCracken. The Hero of This Book (a novel). New York, ecco/HarperCollins, 2022.

“The Other Name” a novel by Jon Fosse: Video interview with this 2023 winner of The Nobel Prize in Literature

To see his revealing interview on how he writes: Click the link below; then, on the right, click “The Other Name” to view that part of the interview.

https://www.google.com/search?q=jon+fosse+interview+videos+youtube&sca_esv=571321355&ei=tS0gZbWQK9-v5NoPvvGV-AQ&ved=0ahUKEwj1vueL5OGBAxXfF1kFHb54BU8Q4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=jon+fosse+interview+videos+youtube&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiImpvbiBmb3NzZSBpbnRlcnZpZXcgdmlkZW9zIHlvdXR1YmUyBRAAGKIESMx8UOQ0WM1mcAF4AJABAJgBfKAB7wWqAQM5LjG4AQPIAQD4AQHCAgsQABiKBRiGAxiwA8ICChAhGKABGMMEGArCAggQIRigARjDBOIDBBgBIEGIBgGQBgI&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:41518191,vid:7Ujz3Lq9OTY,st:0

Comment: Jon Fosse says that he writes what is already written, and that it is dictated to him in his head (by what I would call an alternate personality). Other novelists and poets have said the same thing.

Jon Fosse is yet one more Nobel Prize winner with what I call "multiple personality trait," a mentally normal, creative version of multiple personality.

Alternate Personalities: Not Necessarily Villains

Novels like Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde may make it look like having alternate personalities makes someone a villain. But for one example of a novel in which that is not true, search “Ambassadors” (by Henry James) in this blog.

Comment: Novelists with self-awareness of their own, creative version of multiple personality—what I call “multiple personality trait”—should realize that having alternate personalities does not necessarily make one a villain.

“The Housemaid” (post 4) by Freida McFadden: In the end, it proves to be the husband, not the wife, who had multiple personality

“His voice sounds strange. Unfamiliar…This isn’t the Andrew I fell in love with" (1, pp. 272-273).

1. Freida McFadden. The Housemaid. New York, Grand Central/Hachette, 2022

“The Housemaid” (post 3) by Freida McFadden: Who messes up the Winchester home at night?

The protagonist says, “I’m starting to get stressed because, as usual, the entire house was a mess when I woke up this morning. I don’t know how this house gets so messy. Is Nina’s medication treating some sort of disorder where she gets up in the middle of the night and makes a mess in the house? Is that a thing?” (1, p. 82).

Yes, in multiple personality: not necessarily making a mess, but doing unremembered, out-of-character things, at night:

“MPD patients frequently have the experience of waking up in the morning and finding evidence that they were busy during the night, although they do not remember anything. They may find drawings, notes, poems, relocated furniture…or other evidence that they have been up and busy. If this is a common life experience for a patient, there is an excellent chance that he or she has MPD” (2, p. 81).

In short, Mrs. Winchester, whose regular, daytime personality, is very neat, may have a messy, alternate personality, who comes out at night.

1. Freida McFadden. The Housemaid. New York, Grand Central/Hachette, 2022.

2. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989.

“The Housemaid” (post 2) by Freida McFadden: Wrong medication implies a psychiatrist’s misdiagnosis

Mrs. Winchester’s medicine cabinet has haloperidol (1, p. 66), an antipsychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and acute psychosis (1, p. 67), but NOT used to treat multiple personality.

Comment: Multiple personality—a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder—is NOT a psychosis and is often misdiagnosed. It’s treatment is a specialized form of psychotherapy that is specifically designed for it.

1. Freida McFadden. The Housemaid. New York, Grand Central/Hachette, 2022. 

“The Housemaid” (post 1) by Freida McFadden: Protagonist of New York Times bestseller sometimes feels Mrs. Winchester has Multiple Personality

“Nina throws her head back and laughs. ‘I’m just kidding. It’s your room, Millie! If you want a key, I’ll get you one. I promise.

“Sometimes it feels like Nina has a split personality. She flips from hot to cold so rapidly. She claims she was joking, but I’m not so sure. It doesn’t matter, though. I have no other prospects and this job is a blessing. I’m going to make it work. No matter what. I’m going to make Nina Winchester love me” (1, pp. 25-26).

1. Freida McFadden. The Housemaid. New York, Grand Central/Hachette, 2022.