“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.