Michaelides’ novel “The Silent Patient” opens with Gabriel, a caring husband encouraging Alicia, his adoring wife, to journal her thoughts as a means of therapy. This obviously doesn’t work though as this scene is immediately followed by Alicia apparently shooting Gabriel several times in the face! After Gabriel’s death, Alicia becomes voluntarily mute and is interred at a mental institute. We are then introduced to Theo, a psychotherapist who then spends the rest of the novel trying to get Alicia to speak and understand what really happened the night of the murder. 

• Published: 2019
• Completed: 14/08/2025
• Pages: 339

I started out quite liking this novel. Unlike other murder / thrillers, I initially felt it worked as a true examination of character. The clever juxtaposition of Theo’s seemingly pedestrian life against Alicia’s paranoid and fraught one, was enjoyable to read in its own right; I didn’t pause to analyse or predict what was going to happen because the easy-to-read prose just carried me along with it. As the novel progresses, the contradiction between Theo’s words and actions becomes increasingly and deliciously jarring. Theo will say one thing, but then immediately do the opposite. Through this, we know something is seriously wrong not just with Alicia, but with Theo too.

However, by about the last third of the novel, I grew wary of Theo. When the novel’s twist is finally revealed, the mystery of why Alicia has remained silent all this time is not surprising. It especially should not have been surprising to Theo and indeed makes the starting premise of him wanting to understand Alicia completely redundant. He is instead just being cruel. 

This left me with a bad final impression of the novel and even on reflection, I don’t know why I find the work so deeply repellent. Perhaps I read the closing chapters too quickly. Or maybe I just felt cheated by Theo. Either way, I can appreciate that it was a well constructed novel, just not one that personally resonated with me.

Quotes

• “Gabriel kissed me again and pulled me close. I held on to him, laying my naked body on his. I closed my eyes, and stretched out on a friendly rock that was moulded to my shape. And I felt at peace at last.” P129

New Words

• Countertransference

Restaurant

Cafe Brio because “she told her story with some brio” through her painting