The Silent Patient Summary: Best Book Review

The Silent Patient summary we have here is a look into the book written by Alex Michaelides. In this summary we will delve into the book in regards to showing you all the aspects, starting from Themes to the Plots and even the Significant aspects that truly made the book what it is.

The Silent Patient is a gripping psychological thriller that explores the character Alicia Berenson who is enigmatic and renowned as a painting. But In a seemingly inexplicable act of violence, ends up murdering her husband.

Even more mysterious is the fact that after the horrific event, of Alicia murdering her husband Gabriel, she refuses to speak about it.

Let us delve into more of the story, but first, we will start from the Character list!

The Silent Patient Summary of The Characters

The Silent Patient summary of the characters includes the characters found in the book with brief intros for each of the characters to introduce you to the book.

Theo Faber: The primary narrator of the novel is a psychotherapist. Theo believes strongly that there are great benefits from therapy. He had been deeply troubled by Childhood trauma himself and therapy had helped him overcome it.

Alicia Berenson: A 33-year-old painter in London. Her diary entries constitute the second primary narrative of the novel. Though she is a successful and talented artist, her mental health struggles stem from unresolved childhood trauma.

Gabriel Berenson: He is a handsome and well-dressed man with a charming air and an easygoing vibe. He is a fashion photographer and the husband of Alicia Berenson.

Max Berenson: He is the brother of Gabriel Berenson and a laser. He lacks the good looks and easy social graces that his brother has, whom he admires greatly.

Kathy Faber: She is Theo’s wife and a lovely American stage actress.

Jean-Felix Martin: He is the owner of the art gallery, the one that represents Alicia’s paintings.

Paul Rose: Paternal cousin of Alicia Berenson.

Lydia Rose: She is Alicia Berenson’s paternal aunt.

Vernon Rose:  He is the father of Alicia Berenson.

Eva Rose: She is the mother of Alicia Berenson.

Be sure to note that these descriptions are kept vague intentionally to avoid spoilers from the book.

The Silent Patient Summary Of The Plot

The Silent Patient Summary here has described the plot of the book in a way that would let you understand in a smooth and flowing way to give you a proper handle to go through the story.

The Psychological thriller novel revolves around Alicia Berenson, a painter who is renowned but then is known as the one who murdered her husband who was a fashion photographer named Gabriel. Even after such an event, Alicia refuses to speak about it.

The Novel is Narreted by Theo Faber a forensic psychoanalyst. He is the one trying to uncover Alicia’s motive and heal her wounds. Gabriel who was Alicia’s husband, had been shot in the face five times, in their grand house.

Alicia was then sent to the secure mental institute called the Grove.

The narrative from then can be seen as Theo talking about the present and in part Alicia’s narration of the past through her old diary, which describes the weeks leading up to Gabliel’s murder.

At the start of Thoe’s narration, it was six years after Gabriel’s murder, Theo remains fascinated by Alicia, who still kept silent, he applies to work at the Grove to uncover the cause of her silence.

The novel can be seen using the epistolary techniques and interspersing Theo’s narrative of the present, and Alicia’s narrative from her old diary to recount the weeks running up to Gabriel’s murder.

The two narratives ultimately intersect in a twist of plot revealing that Theo and Alica have a shared past that is far more personal than what it was, seen until now, they weren’t just a simple doctor and patient in their relationship.

The Silent Patient Summary Of The Themes

In The Silent Patient Summary of the themes, we go through the book to understand and untangle the book of its themes and single them out to ease our understanding of them.

Silence:

Silence is one of the most prominent themes In the book. The protagonist Alicia Berenson remains quiet after she is accused of killing her husband. But the more time went by, her silence became that much more confusing to the crowd.

It felt observers to the point where they had been driven to untangle the enigmatic riddles she harbors.

Mental Illness and Childhood Trauma:

The Connection between Alicia’s silence and her haunting childhood experiences became apparent throughout the novel. The author can be seen to examine the impact of childhood trauma on mental health and its ability to determine one’s course of existence.

Empathy, Identification, and Boundaries:

These themes are prominent throughout the novel from Theo who was the narrator of the novel from the start, as he felt that it was his job to feel the patient’s pain for them, he a trainee psychotherapist made it his goal.

Tragedy and Destiny:

Like the play ‘Alcestis’ much of the plot of the book also presents kind of the same theme, where a brilliant person falls to their doom through a combination of overconfidence and destiny. Thus it can be related to Alcestis the Greek tragedy by Euripides.

Honesty vs. Deception

The author has put high value on the theme of honesty which is scarcely found in the novel itself, as most of the characters in the narrative a liars, this contrasted so much with the aspect of needing Honesty that the pervasive deception seen throughout the story is pointing out the need of Honesty.

Childhood Trauma:

Childhood Trauma is a large part of the book as it explores the theme deeply, how the impact of childhood trauma hurts the psyche. The memory has formed, in the land of childhood, abuse and mistreatment give birth to rage and pain.

Alex Michaelides’s inspiration for The Silent Patient

The Silent Patient Summary also delved into the details of how or what inspired Alex Michaelides to write this fabulous tale. Even then it is known that, before he finalized it, he had rewrote the draft around 50 times.

He drew inspiration for The Silent Prayer from various sources. he had a background in working at a secure psychiatric unit for teenagers. That work experience provided him with a lot of inspiration for setting his novel in a psychiatric unit.

Not only that he also had gained inspiration from Athenian tragedy in Alcestis, by Euripides, which served as an inspiration for the plot. The narrative of the plot can be said as influenced by Agatha Christie’s writing.

Michaelides grew up in Cyprus, It was there, that he was exposed to Greek myths and tragedies, all of these had a strong influence on his writing. Not to mention the Euripides play Alcestis had enchanted him from his childhood days.

In conclusion, all these diverse influences came together to form the unique and gripping narrative of The Silent Prayer.

A Few Words to End The Silent Patient Summary

The Silent Patient Summary is written with a clear perspective in sight, we kept the summary as easy to understand as possible but also tried to comprehend the book in all its details.

So if you have come this far, We are sure that you have not been lost on the book, if you were thinking about reading it then perhaps you have already found the motivation to start reading.

Though for those who have already read the book, We hope this summary has given you a new thought to look over as you are thinking about The Silent Patient.

In conclusion, we would like to say that this is an enjoyable read for anyone interested in The Silent Patient and we would love it if you have enjoyed your time reading this.

If you are interested in reading more of our summaries, be sure to check us out and browse through our collection of books for free!