Fiction

Written by Pam

Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace (New York: Anchor Books/ Doubleday, 1996). The Margaret Atwood Information Site.

This novel is based on the true story of a woman convicted of murder in 19th century Canada. The story line of the novel follows the process by which a psychologist seeks to uncover her story and discovers finally that the crime was committed by another personality. The novel is completely faithful to how a doctor in the mid-19th century would have understood multiple (or at the time what was considered to be dual) personalities; it is not shaped at all by a 20th century understanding of DID. An interesting read, but don't expect light entertainment.

Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory (New York: Vintage Books, 1994).

A novel of a Haitian girl growing to womanhood in Haiti and New York in the shadow of her history. Her mother became pregnant with her as the result of a rape at age 16. And she and her mother and her mother before her struggled with the trauma of the experience of each having their mother regularly test their virginity. This book faces the pain head on, and preserves some hope. Multiplicity is referred to as a cultural tradition, that women "double" to survive the trauma they grow up with.

Philip Graham, How to Read an Unwritten Language (New York: Scribner, 1995).

This book is the story of a boy who grows up with a mother who develops multiple personalities and then kills herself. Despite that description it is in many ways a hopeful book, as the boy grows into a man who can read the symbolic meanings of everyday things. Part of the story concerns his collection of objects associated with painful episodes in other people's lives, and how he gives those objects and their stories to people who need them. The book is not particularly sophisticated about multiple personalities, but the son's coming to understanding of the world was meaningful to me.

Philip Graham, Interior Design: Stories (New York: Scribner, 1996).

None of these short stories deal directly with multiple personalities, but there are several stories that deal very strongly with inside worlds and with the relationship between the inside world and the outside world. If you have an inside house that is elaborately decorated you have to read the title story.

Fernando Pessoa, Richard Zenith (Translator) Fernando Pessoa Co.: Selected Poems (New York: Grove/Atlantic, 1999).

Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) is Pourtugal's greatest poet. He had a number of what he called heteronyms--personalities who wrote very different poems and who commented on each other's work. As I read the poems this seems to me to be more than a literary device; it seems to me that he had multiple personalities and made constructive use of it. One of his heteronyms wrote an autobiography called The Book of Disquietude.

Barbara Wilson, If You Had a Family (Seattle: Seal Press, 1996).

This novel tells much of the same story as Barbara Wilson's memoir, Blue Windows. Sexual abuse by the main character's uncle is a significant part of the story, though not always the center. The book deals with the process of recovery in the context of lesbian relationships. Some of the incidents seemed a bit cliché to me, but the overall effect is moving.

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