“Multiple Motives” (post 2) by Kassandra Lamb: Creatively, Subjectively Honest, Author’s Notes

I did keep reading this book, until I peeked at the back, and found a section of “Author’s Notes” (1, pp. 275-277), which included the following:

“Also, apologies to the Baltimore County Police Department for the fictional Detective Philips. I tried very hard to make him a more balanced human being, with some good as well as bad in him. But characters sometimes have a will of their own, and no matter what I did, he refused to be anything but obnoxious” (1, p. 277).

Comment: Psychologically, characters that have a will of their own are alternate personalities. And it was after reading many author interviews in which authors had made this same kind of “joke” that I finally realized, in a very real sense, subjectively, they were not joking—this was their creative experience. And as the old saying goes: “Truth is often spoken in jest.”

1. Kassandra Lamb. Multiple Motives. misterio press, 2011.

“Multiple Motives” (post 1) by Kassandra Lamb: Italics in Prologue

“The vehicle cruised sedately down the street.

Don’t want to be getting a speeding ticket and draw attention to ourselves, now do we?

The driver of the vehicle pulled into a parking place near the intersection. The target had crossed here the day before, striding briskly along the crosswalk like she owned the world.

Rage surged, threatening to explode.

It starts today. With her!

The rage subsided, temporarily appeased.

The numbers on the sign above the bank building rolled over from 11:56 to 11:57. She didn’t always go out to lunch, but that was okay.

If not now, then later. Either way, it starts today” (1, pp. 1-2).

Comment: Using the categories of italics I proposed in my May 22, 2025 post, the above prologue appears to use italics to suggest the voice of an alternate personality. I can’t say more until I read this novel.

1. Kassandra Lamb. Multiple Motives. misterio press, 2011. 

“But Not Forgotten” by B. J. Bourg: Two Different Uses for Italics

Italics for Voice of Alternate Personality

“What are you doing, Clint? You’ll make a fool out of yourself for sure. Why are you even here, anyway? What do you expect will happen?

I shook the voices out of my head. “To hell with it!" (1, p, 91).

Italics for emphasis

“Fine, y’all win. I’ll come in tomorrow and settle this shit” (1, p. 203).

1. B.J. Bourg. But Not Forgotten, A Clint Wolf Novel (Book 1),  WWW.BJBOURG.COM., 2015. 

“The New Couple in 5B” by Lisa Unger: Back Cover sets scene for this novel, plus a sample of Author’s dissociative, multiple-personality trait

"A couple inherits an apartment with a spine-tingling past in this haunting and propulsive thriller” (1, Back Cover).

“The room is dim, though it’s past noon..And I can’t move…my head is heavy on the pillow…There’s a part of me that wants to get up. She’s in there, the real me, the strong one, screaming, pull yourself together!” (1, p. 223).

Comment: The protagonist has “parts” (alternate personalities) and speaks with an italicized voice in her head. Search “parts” and “italicized” in this blog for their discussion in other novels.

1. Lisa Unger. The New Couple in 5B. Park Row Books, 2024.

“Love, Mom” by Iliana Xander

Mom, a famous novelist, has died. Her daughter tries to understand her mother from pages in her mother’s diary, which include: 

“My mind has been hazy lately. I did bizarre things and didn’t even remember doing them (1, p. 123). [That is a “memory gap.”]

Psychiatric Note: Memory gaps are a cardinal symptom of multiple personality disorder (a.k.a. dissociative identity disorder). (However, it is not a formal “disorder” (mental illness) unless it causes the novelist clinically significant distress and dysfunction).

Daughter's Comments: “There it is, the truth that friends and family never admit. And the truth is that Mom felt off quite often. Off in an unsettling way…Maybe she had a personality disorder. Or a multiple personalities disorder” (1, pp. 133-134).

1. Iliana Xander. Love, Mom. Vellum, 2024. 

“Look Closer” by David Ellis: Characters Narrate the Chapters, and one Character has an “Alter Ego,” suggestive of Multiple Personality

Narration

Chapters in this murder mystery are narrated in the first-person by the characters, which is an engaging format, but it suggests the characters have minds of their own, which is the essence of alternate personalities in multiple personality (2).

Alter Ego

One of the characters, Vicky, says, “I didn’t grow up in West Virginia. Vicky Lanier, my alter ego did. But my father was an avid hunter and took me with him sometimes. He’d take me to the shooting range, too, and let me fire his guns, at least his handguns” (1, p. 269). Search “alter ego” in this blog.

Comment: Later in this novel, does Vicky’s alter ego participate in a murder? I cite the above in support of this blog's thesis that many novelists have what I call “multiple personality trait,” a normal, creative version of multiple personality.

1. David Ellis. Look Closer. New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2022.

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

“Allegedly” by Tiffany D. Jackson: Protagonist’s reputation as a LIAR can be a diagnostic feature of Multiple Personality Disorder

“…Apparent pathological lying…is one of the best diagnostic predictors…for multiple personality disorder…Adult MPD patients will often recount that they acquired a reputation as liars in childhood…This may happen to all of us at some time or other, but MPD patients will have this experience frequently in childhood and fairly often as adults. Consequently, some MPD patients will become obsessed with “truth” as adults…

“Multiples are perceived by other people as lying when they deny doing things that they were seen to do. In most instances, this is because the personality that is denying the behavior is amnesic for the actions of another personality who actually performed the actions” (2, pp. 78-79).

Comment: I don’t know how the author came to choose the theme of lying for this novel (1), which never mentions multiple personality.

1. Tiffany D. Jackson. Allegedly. New York, HarperCollins, 2017.

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