One night, however, Kathy accidentally leaves her laptop open-and Theo discovers she has been having an affair. Theo reflects on his relationship with his wife Kathy, a lovely, energetic actress. Alicia is also haunted by memories of her mother’s suicide. She loves him so much that it scares her-she even wants to paint him as Jesus Christ. Meanwhile, in a series of diary entries from the summer of the murder, Alicia describes her relationship with Gabriel. Though Theo realizes he is obsessing over Alicia, he feels that he is powerless to stop himself from going deeper: “his fate was already decided-like in a Greek tragedy.” He also introduces himself to Alicia’s former gallerist Jean-Felix Martin. He discovers she was in a violent altercation with a woman named Elif, one of the ward’s most fearsome patients. In the present, Theo digs into Alicia’s file, learning about her relationships in and outside of the Grove.

Fortunately, after a failed suicide attempt, Theo found solace in his therapist Ruth, whose warmth and wisdom inspired him to become a therapist himself. Though he was able to get out of his home and go to college, Theo was so haunted by his father’s mistreatment that he tried to kill himself.

Theo had an abusive father and an ineffectual mother his only happy memory from childhood is of playing in the snow by himself. But he spars with Christian, an old colleague who prefers to prescribe medication rather than talk through issues.Īs Theo begins to treat Alicia, he reflects on his own troubled childhood. At the Grove, Theo connects with Lazarus Diomedes, the head of psychiatry, with nurse Yuri, and with fellow therapist Indira.

But Theo is so drawn to Alicia that he leaves his job to work at the Grove, taking her on as a patient. Through it all, she never said a word-earning herself the nickname “the silent patient.” Her only comment is a self-portrait entitled Alcestis.Īfter a period of intense media attention, most people lose interest in the case. After the murder, Alicia was tried, found guilty, and institutionalized at the Grove, a psychiatric ward. Late one August night, Alicia Berenson, a renowned painter, shot her husband Gabriel five times in the face. Theo Faber, a respected psychotherapist, describes a sensational murder from six years earlier.

Alcestis the silent patient