BASIC CONCEPTS

— When novelists claim they do not invent it, but hear voices and find stories in their head, they are neither joking nor crazy.

— When characters, narrators, or muses have minds of their own and occasionally take over, they are alternate personalities.

— Alternate personalities and memory gaps, but no significant distress or dysfunction, is a normal version of multiple personality.

— normal Multiple Personality Trait (MPT) (core of Multiple Identity Literary Theory), not clinical Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

— The normal version of multiple personality is an asset in fiction writing when some alternate personalities are storytellers.

— Multiple personality originates when imaginative children with normal brains have unassuaged trauma as victim or witness.

— Psychiatrists, whose standard mental status exam fails to ask about memory gaps, think they never see multiple personality.

— They need the clue of memory gaps, because alternate personalities don’t acknowledge their presence until their cover is blown.

— In novels, most multiple personality, per se, is unnoticed, unintentional, and reflects the author’s view of ordinary psychology.

— Multiple personality means one person who has more than one identity and memory bank, not psychosis or possession.

— Euphemisms for alternate personalities include parts, pseudonyms, alter egos, doubles, double consciousness, voice or voices.

— Multiple personality trait: 90% of fiction writers; possibly 30% of public.

— Each time you visit, search "name index" or "subject index," choose another name or subject, and search it.

— If you read only recent posts, you miss most of what this site has to offer.

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MPD Textbooks: — Frank W. Putnam, MD. Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) (a.k.a. Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), New York, The Guilford Press, 1989. —James G. Friesen, PhD. Uncovering the Mystery of MPD, (includes discussion of demonic possession) Eugene, Oregon, Wipf and Stock Publishers,1997.

Monday, September 8, 2025

“Manhattan Beach” by Jennifer Egan: Protagonist gets advice in the form of an italicized voice in her head


“Have you any brothers?” Tabatha asked.

“A sister,” Anna said.

“How pretty?”

“Extremely pretty,” Anna said gravely, then added, “She looks like our mother, who danced with the Follies.” The error of this boast accosted her a moment later. Never part with a fact unless you’ve no choice. Her father’s voice in her ears” (1, p. 6).


Comment: Why didn’t the text simply say that she remembered her father’s advice? Why did she remember his advice in the form of a voice? Because she had retained his advice in the form of an alternate personality who was made in his image and/or who recalled what he had said.


Persons with alternate personalities may hear their voices in their head (2, p. 94). Novelists often have a normal, creative version of multiple personality, as discussed in many past posts. Also search “italicized voices” in this blog.


1. Jennifer Egan. Manhattan Beach, New York, Scribner, 2017.

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

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