Laury Egan will capture your attention from page one of her psychological suspense novel, a tale of two teenaged youths, but it’s not as simple a premise as it seems, for both of these teens inhabit the same mind and body, with a devastating outcome.
Afflicted with Dissociative Identity Disorder, long known as Multiple Personality Disorder, Egan illustrates how Jack’s early childhood abandonment followed by a series of foster home abuses led to the host Jack being “occupied” at times by another Jack whose actions lead to truancy, stalking, promiscuity–and that’s the tip of the iceberg. Worst of all, perhaps, is that host Jack often has amnesia to the actions of his alter ego. Scenes of host Jack waking and finding himself in a different place or situation from where he started out are particularly harrowing.
It’s a recipe for disaster as the ‘two Jacks’ struggle for dominance. Along the way Egan clearly illustrates, with growing horror, how Jack must learn to cope with the actions of someone who is his moral opposite to the point of causing him legal troubles. The reader identifies with host Jack’s heartbreaking attempts to carry on a semblance of normal life.
The depth that Egan uses to illustrate Jack’s early abuse explains why his “other” takes over at times and how that developed. Psychologists and therapists who understand this complex disease help to explain it to Jack, and thus to the reader, as he tries to find an inner strength to combat the torment of his daily life and overcome the hopeless feeling he has to find a road to a semblance of a normal life.
At once a terrific character study of both Jacks, it’s also a primer on this form of mental illness. With grace and compassion, Egan has created a suspenseful novel that shines a light on a harrowing disease.
Laury A. Egan is the author of thirteen novels, including The Black Leopard’s Kiss & The Writer Remembers; The Psychologist’s Shadow; Once, Upon an Island; The Firefly; Doublecrosses; and Jenny Kidd. as well as a collection, Fog and Other Stories, and four volumes of poetry. She lives on the northern coast of New Jersey. Visit Laury at: www.lauryaegan.com.
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