“What Have We Done” by Alex Finlay: This novel is Compartmentalized like the mind of a person with “Multiple Personality Trait”

If an author who was aware of having “multiple personality trait” were to submit his new novel for publication, he might ask his agent and editor to see “what WE" — his multiple personalities — have done.

In a chapter titled “JENNA" (1, p. 113), the name of one of the main characters, it says that she had coped in her life by using “compartmentalization, denial, the stuff that got her through" (1, p. 114).

Indeed, most every chapter in this novel is compartmentalized according to the name of its main character and point in history, just as each alternate personality of a person with multiple personality has its own name and the times it has been most active in the person’s life.

Comment: Since I suspect that most novelists have “multiple personality trait” (see past posts), I speculate that more novels in the past would have had this format if publishers had permitted it, and if readers had not objected to it. And I wonder whether readers who most enjoy this format have multiple personality trait, too.

1. Alex Finlay. What Have We Done. New York, Minotaur Books, 2023. 

Believed Lies in Politics, Fiction, & Multiple Personality 

1. Bill Adair. Beyond the Big Lie: The Epidemic of Political Lying, Why Republicans Do it More, and How it could Burn Down our Democracy. New York, Atria, 2024.

2. Marjorie Taylor, Sara D. Hodges, Adèle Kohányi. “The Illusion of Independent Agency: Do Adult Fiction Writers Experience Their Characters as Having Minds of Their Own?” Imagination, Cognition and Personality, Vol. 22(4) 361-380, 2002-2003.

https://pages.uoregon.edu/hodgeslab/files/Download/Taylor%20Hodges%20Kohanyi_2003.pdf

3. Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder. New York, The Guilford Press, 1989, pp. 78-81.

Donald Trump’s “alternative facts,” pseudonyms, and false or misleading statements

His use of pseudonyms may have been nothing more than a deceptive tactic, but could suggest a tendency toward multiple personality, since the names of alternate personalities are pseudonyms.

1.Wikipedia. “Alternative facts.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_facts

2. Wikipedia. “Pseudonyms used by Donald Trump.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonyms_used_by_Donald_Trump

3. Wikipedia. “False or misleading statements by Donald Trump.”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_or_misleading_statements_by_Donald_Trump

"Final Girls” by Riley Sager: The last survivor of a murder spree has “Dissociative amnesia,” (1, p. 9) dissociative identity, (1, p. 213) and barely recognizes herself in the mirror (1, p. 252)

“Detective Carmen Hernandez is smartly dressed in a gray blazer and red blouse.The bracelet wrapped around her right wrist clicks as she takes a seat. A dozen charms dangle from the sterling silver…A bolder version of me would try to steal it. I imagine looking into the charms and seeing a dozen different versions of myself” (1, p. 213).

Comment: “Dissociative Amnesia” (1, p. 9). and memory gaps are major symptoms of multiple personality (a.k.a. Dissociative Identity Disorder), along with different subjective versions of the person (alternate personalities).

“A flight attendant snaps me awake as we make our descent into New York…I look out the window, the night sky and the plane’s interior lights turning it into an oval mirror. I barely recognize the reflection staring back at me. I can’t remember the last time I did” (1. p. 252).

Comment: “MPD” patients often report seeing themselves as different people when they look into a mirror” (2, p. 62).

1. Riley Sager. Final Girls. New York, Dutton, 2017.

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

“The Night Guest” (1) by Icelandic novelist Hildur Knútsdóttir: Hint to nature of “night guest,” which is never explicitly stated in the novel

Hint

“Somnambulism [sleepwalking] is not uncommon in adult victims of 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, discarded clothing, 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).

Comment: Since “multiple personality” (a.k.a. dissociative identity) is never explicitly mentioned in this novel, the reader still has to understand what is going on.

1. Hildur Knútsdóttir. The Night Guest. Trans. from Icelandic by Mary Robinette Kowal. New York, Tor Nightfire, 2021

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

“The Guest List” by Lucy Foley: Meaning of Voices and Parts

Jules, bride-to-be, thinks that the setting for her marriage is perfect: “Everything is going to be perfect” (1, p. 16).

However, using the literary convention of italics for a voice in the head, a voice in her head advises her: “Don’t think about the note, Jules.”

Jules agrees: "I will not think about the note (that she found in her letter box three weeks ago) that…“told me not to marry Will. To call it off,” (1, p. 16).

Comment: Conversations with rational (but not infallible) voices in the head—voices of alternate personalities—are often found in multiple personality. But since Jules is not labelled as having multiple personality, the above may reflect the novelist’s psychology, a creative literary asset I call “multiple personality trait.” Search it in this blog and see below:

Author’s afterword: The author’s reference to “a sneaky little part of me that’s always on the lookout for inspiration” (1, p. 3 “About the book”) may refer to a creative alternate personality in her “multiple personality trait.” 

1. Lucy Foley. The Guest List. New York, William Morrow, 2020. 

“Memoirs of a Geisha” a novel by Arthur Golden: Traumatized protagonist has both childhood and Geisha personalities—“fragments” or “parts"— causing puzzling contradictions in behavior and memory gaps

“…how could Nobu [her adult romantic interest] possibly understand anything about me, when he’d seen me solely as a geisha, keeping my true self carefully concealed? The Chairman [an eminent businessman] was the only man I’d ever entertained as Sayuri the geisha, who had also known me as Chiyo [from her childhood]—though it was strange to think of it this way, for I’d never realized it before…Why couldn’t I stop thinking about the Chairman [and stop saving the handkerchief he’d given her in a kindly gesture, many years ago]? (1, p. 394).

“My thoughts were in fragments I could hardly piece together. Certainly it was true that part of me hoped desperately to be adopted by Mr. Tanaka after my mother died, but another part of me was very much afraid…I don’t know how much time passed…(1, p. 21).

Comment: Persons with undiagnosed multiple personality often report having “parts” and memory gaps (if you ask them) due to alternate personalities, which also may cause puzzling contradictions in the person’s behavior. As in most novels with such symptoms, there is no explicit reference to multiple personality, because the author didn’t realize it was at issue. Search “parts,” “memory gaps,” and “puzzling contradictions” for relevant past posts. Many readers evidently find unlabelled multiple personality entertaining.

1. Arthur Golden. Memoirs of a Geisha. New York, Vintage, 1997. 

“Renegade Wife,” a Romance novel by Barbara Heinlein, writing as B. J. Daniels: Characters have changing Personalities

“She couldn’t imagine…why she was having trouble remembering all but random moments from the party” (1, p. 8). [memory gaps may be a symptom of dissociative identity, a.k.a. multiple personality]

“If anything, she was more curious about who her husband had been, the real Lucian Beck—if there had been one” (1, p. 88). [She wonders if he had more than one identity.]

“Guess you knew a different man than I did. You sure his name was Lucian Beck?” (1, p. 96).

“That woman he’d kissed and who kissed him back felt as if it had been someone else. She barely remembered that other Geneva Carrington Beck, the one who was still married to Lucian (1 p. 121).

“Shaking his head, he said, “Were you always like this?

“No. I’m terrified of this woman Lucian has made me into” (1, p. 128).

“Lucian.” Geneva stared at the man who walked out of the pines toward her. It was just shy of a week since he’d left her, and yet she barely recognized him…She didn’t know this man. No doubt ever had…” (1, p. 141).

“Who was that woman who’d fired those shots? Not the Geneva Carrington Beck she’d known. This had changed her…She could never go back to being the person she was. Unfortunately, she couldn’t imagine where that left her. Or what she would do” (1, pp. 161-162).

Comment: Is there a psychological connection between the protagonist’s personality change and the author’s writing under a pseudonym? Both may reflect the author’s multiple personality trait.                                                                                                                                 

1. B. J. Daniels. Renegade Wife. Harlequin Intrigue, 2024. 

“Rose Cottage” by Mary Stewart (3): The italicized Voice in a character’s head, and division of a character’s mind into Parts are Gratuitous symptoms of multiple personality

1. Italicized Voice in Character’s Head

    “Home? I remember, I remember” (1, p. 64).

    “Take life easy.” (1, p. 218).

    “Take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree" (1, p. 233).

     Note: The voice has a consistent personality. Alternate personalities are often heard as a voice in the person’s head (2, p. 94).

2. Parts

   “Part of me longed for her coming, with a kind of uncertain excitement, but another part was afraid” (1, p. 181).

   “I had been listening to his story with only half my mind; the other half was outside there, in the car at the cottage gate” (1, p. 203).

Comments: Prior to their diagnosis of multiple personality, patients often refer to their alternate personalities as “parts” (2, p. 92). Symptoms of multiple personality are gratuitous in this novel, because no character is labeled as having multiple personality, and the symptoms may only reflect the author’s multiple personality trait (not disorder), which is probably an asset in writing novels.

1. Mary Stewart. Rose Cottage. Chicago Review Press, HarperCollins, 1997/2011. 

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

3. Wikipedia. Mary Stewart (novelist). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Stewart_(novelist)

“Dark Prince” (1), a paranormal romance (2) by Christine Feehan: Mikhail, living in a world without women, is astonished to hear a woman’s voice in his head

“Mikhail Dubinsky…could no longer bear…the stark, raw loneliness of his existence…Mikhail, who had filled his life with art and philosophy, with work and science, knew the weapons of man and had learned to become a weapon himself…His people were a dying species…There were no women to continue their species…The males were essentially predators…For each it was necessary to find his missing half, the life-mate that would bring him forever into the light…"(1, pp. 1-2).

“The trouble is not really being alone, it’s being lonely…” [said a voice in his head].

“Curious, he replayed the words, listened to the voice. Female, young, matter-of-fact, highly intelligent.

“I have found it to be so,” he agreed.

“Who could speak telepathically other than one of his kind? Now hearing this voice, this voice of a human woman, he was astonished…

“How is it you can talk to me?” (1, p. 3).

Comment: Romance characters, reflective of Romance authors, as is true of literary characters and authors, may hear italicized voices in their head, possibly (probably) voices of undiagnosed alternate personalities, as discussed in many past posts.

1. Christine Feehan. Dark Prince (A Carpathian Novel), New York, Avon, 1999/2011.

2. Wikipedia. “Paranormal romance." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal_romance. 

“Fairy Tale” (post 2) a novel by Stephen King: Incidental remarks and details may reflect author’s multiple personality trait

“I think sometimes we know where we’re going even when we think we don’t” (1, p. 111). Comment: This may refer to the author’s intuition that an alternate personality may have known the rest of the story before his regular personality did.

“Doing that made the inside me feel absurd, like a little kid playing cowboy. The outside me was glad to have the weight of it, and knowing it was fully loaded" (1, p. 165). Comment: The “inside me” may mean a child-aged alternate personality and “outside me” may mean an adult alternate personality. Child-aged alternate personalities are common in multiple personality, because multiple personality usually begins in childhood.

“Part of me (one personality) wanted to eject the tape…But I (another personality) didn’t. Couldn’t. Trust me, Charlie. I’m depending on you” (1, p. 168). Comment: Italics often indicate a voice in the character’s head. Search “italics” in this blog for discussion of voices in past posts on other novels. Also search “parts,” a  common euphemism for alternate personalities.

Additional Comment: The protagonist has a stereotypical history of childhood trauma for a person who later develops multiple personality: His mother died when he was young and his father became an alcoholic. But a happy ending is quite possible.

1. Stephen King. Fairy Tale. New York, Scribner, 2022/2023. 

“Fairy Tale” (post 1) a novel by Stephen King: Protagonist has italicized thoughts, “only it didn’t seem like my thought at all.” How is it possible to both have, and not have, various thoughts?

“…I can’t leave her [the patient’s dog]. I’ll have to take her to the goddam hospital…” [says the patient].

“They won’t let you," I said. “You must know that.”

“Then I’m not going" [says the patient].

“Oh yes you are, I thought. And then I thought something else, only it didn’t seem like my thought at all. I’m sure it was, but it didn’t seem that way. We had a deal. Never mind picking up litter on the highway, this is where you hold up your end of it” (1, p. 26).

Comment: In this blog, search “italicized” to see past posts with examples from other novels. Novelists may or may not understand how a person or character can both have and not have particular thoughts. Undiagnosed, even unintentional, alternate personalities, make it possible. 

1. Stephen King. Fairy Tale. New York, Scribner, 2022/2023. 

“Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead" (post 3) by Olga Tokarczuk: Janina’s gratuitous symptoms of multiple personality in the rest of the novel

“But on the whole, from the time of my brief stay in custody I became very absentminded” (1, p. 219).

“I kept talking to myself and realized there was something wrong with me…I’d become pensive and would be lost in thought for hours at a time. I put down my keys in the garage, for instance, and couldn’t find them for a week” (1, p. 220).

“On several occasions, I seemed to hear other people’s thoughts” (1, p. 233).

“I could have been a pretty good writer. But at the same time I have trouble explaining my feelings and the motives of my behavior” (1, p. 249).

“I got home without being noticed. Once I was in the car I couldn’t remember a thing” (1, pp. 261-262).

“ But will you believe me when I say I didn’t do it entirely consciously? I instantly forgot what had happened, as if there were some powerful Defense Mechanisms protecting me. Perhaps I should ascribe it to my Ailments—quite simply, from time to time I was not Janina, but Bellona or Medea” (1, p. 262).

Comments: Gratuitous symptoms of multiple personality included memory gaps and alternate identities, possibly reflective of author's multiple personality trait.

1. Olga Tokarczuk. Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead. Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones., New York, Riverhead Books, 2009/2019.  

“Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead" (post 2) by Olga Tokarczuk: Protagonist-narrator lies to police (and reader) due to regular personality’s memory gap for threat by her angry alternate personality

“I knew that the Police like to have everything confirmed.

“Is it true that you behaved aggressively during the hunting here, in the locality?”

“I would say that I behaved angrily, not aggressively. There’s a difference. I expressed my Anger because they were killing Animals.”

“Did you make death threats?”

“Anger can prompt one to utter various words, but it can also make one fail to remember them afterward.”

“There are witnesses who have stated that you shouted, and I quote—‘I’ll kill you (obscenity), you’ll be punished for these crimes. You have no shame, you’re not afraid of anything. I’ll beat your brains out.’”

He read it dispassionately, which I found amusing.

"Why are you smiling?” asked the second one in a wounded tone.

“I find it comical that I could have said such things. I’m a peaceful person…” (1, p. 215).

Comment: In this blog, search “memory gaps” and “lying” for past posts on these recurrent issues in multiple personality.

1. Olga Tokarczuk. Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead. Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones., New York, Riverhead Books, 2009/2019.  

“Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead" (post 1) by Olga Tokarczuk: Words from an Alternate Personality

“No one was listening to me, but I went on with my speech. I couldn’t stop, because the words were coming to me from somewhere of their own accord…"(1, p. 105).

Comment: Words can seem to come to a person “of their own accord” only if there is something in their head with a mind of its own, which is the essence of an alternate personality.

1. Olga Tokarczuk. Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead. Trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones., New York, Riverhead Books, 2009/2019.

“Midnight Fugue” (post 2) a novel by Reginald Hill: Novel’s diagnosis of character who runs away, and how the character describes his subjective experience when he returns

“State of fugue posited by medical experts” (1, p. 166).

“For a long time I was just a sackful of fragments trying to learn how to reassemble itself…I was in pieces. I didn’t just run away and hide from you, Gina [his wife]. I hid from myself…telling it straight isn’t easy because of the [memory] gaps (1. pp. 280-281).

Comment: A dissociative fugue is used as a plot device in this complex detective story, which is the last book in a 24-novel series.

1. Reginald Hill. Midnight Fugue. (A Dalziel & Pascoe Mystery). New York, Harper, 2009/2021.

“Midnight Fugue” (post 1) a novel by Reginald Hill: What is a Dissociative Fugue?

Back Cover: “Gina Wolfe has come to mid-Yorkshire in search of her missing husband…Is he in [a dissociative] fugue (3) or is he in flight [run away]?” (1).

Reginald Hill was a successful English novelist (2).

Agatha Christie had a famous, real-life disappearance in 1926 (4), probably a dissociative fugue.

1. Reginald Hill. Midnight Fugue. (A Dalziel & Pascoe Mystery). New York, Harper, 2009/2021.

2. Wikipedia. Reginald Hill. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Hill

3. Wikipedia. Dissociative Fugue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_fugue

4. Wikipedia. “Agatha Christie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christiehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie

Comment: In this blog, search “Flitcraft’s Fugue” for a post on the story of a dissociative fugue in The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.