Alicia Berenson is a successful London painter married to a fashion photographer, Gabriel. One evening, Gabriel returns home late, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face. When police arrive, she is found covered in blood next to his body, completely mute. She never speaks again, making her only statement through a haunting self-portrait titled Alcestis, named after a Greek myth about a wife who dies to save her husband. Alicia is declared legally insane and confined to The Grove, a secure psychiatric facility.
Six years later, criminal psychotherapist Theo Faber intentionally takes a job at The Grove specifically to treat Alicia. Theo is convinced he can break her silence where everyone else has failed. As he struggles to get her to talk, he begins an unauthorized investigation into her past, interviewing her family and friends. Parallel to this, Theo details his own troubled personal life, including a traumatic childhood and his current devastation over discovering that his beloved wife, Kathy, is having an affair.
Theo eventually secures a breakthrough when Alicia hands him her secret diary. However, the book delivers a massive timeline twist.
Michaelides (Alex Michaelides – Author of The Silent Patient and The Maidens) has written an engrossing psychological thriller in this book, which has been highly praised for its structural ingenuity. The use of Euripides’ tragedy Alcestis adds a sophisticated layer to the plot, whilst it provides a clever thematic clue for why Alicia chooses silence, elevating it above standard, formulaic thrillers.
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352 pages in Orion
First published 2019
ISBN-13 : 978-1409181637
Alex Michaelides