Book Review: Trauma
I believe I have mentioned that my degree is in psychology/counseling. Part of the reason I chose that field to study was my fascination with people and especially why people do what they do. So what fascinates me about Patrick McGrath's books (I read Asylum last year) is the psychological aspect. The protagonists in both books are psychiatrists. But they are also very unreliable narrators. The narrator in Asylum didn't appear to be aware of how his observations were colored by his own pathology. By the end, he was pretty loath-able.
The narrator in Trauma, Charlie, is overly analytical about his own motivations. His observations about himself and the other people in his life are sometimes correct but often are colored by a single childhood trauma and his mind's fractured way of dealing with that trauma. He walks out on his wife and daughter after his wife's brother (a patient of his who was a Vietnam vet) commits suicide. He gets involved with a woman who is clearly damaged and wants to use him as her own personal therapist. He gets into fist fights with his brother. He is lost when his mother dies, a mother whom he comforted during her depression but who pushed him away emotionally. It's engrossing and McGrath knows how to drop tidbits here and there to keep the reader interested. We never find out what happened to the damaged woman Charlie lives with for a while, but we do find out what happened to Charlie as a child. It's a shattering revelation for him, but McGrath doesn't ruin it for his audience by making it something obvious or out of place with the rest of the book (i.e. Charlie was abducted by aliens as a child). So I didn't see it coming, but with hindsight I realized there were enough clues to make it plausible.
It's a little slow in some places, so I'm going to give it just the four "books." Still, I do recommend both Asylum and Trauma for those who like a little psychology from an unreliable narrator.
Trauma by Patrick McGrath
Rating:
The narrator in Trauma, Charlie, is overly analytical about his own motivations. His observations about himself and the other people in his life are sometimes correct but often are colored by a single childhood trauma and his mind's fractured way of dealing with that trauma. He walks out on his wife and daughter after his wife's brother (a patient of his who was a Vietnam vet) commits suicide. He gets involved with a woman who is clearly damaged and wants to use him as her own personal therapist. He gets into fist fights with his brother. He is lost when his mother dies, a mother whom he comforted during her depression but who pushed him away emotionally. It's engrossing and McGrath knows how to drop tidbits here and there to keep the reader interested. We never find out what happened to the damaged woman Charlie lives with for a while, but we do find out what happened to Charlie as a child. It's a shattering revelation for him, but McGrath doesn't ruin it for his audience by making it something obvious or out of place with the rest of the book (i.e. Charlie was abducted by aliens as a child). So I didn't see it coming, but with hindsight I realized there were enough clues to make it plausible.
It's a little slow in some places, so I'm going to give it just the four "books." Still, I do recommend both Asylum and Trauma for those who like a little psychology from an unreliable narrator.
Trauma by Patrick McGrath
Rating: