The Patient
"One of the most frightening stories I have ever read in my entire life." —RYAN REYNOLDS
The Silent Patient by way of Stephen King: Parker, a young, overconfident psychiatrist new to his job at a mental asylum miscalculates catastrophically when he undertakes curing a mysterious and profoundly dangerous patient.
In a series of online posts, Parker H., a young psychiatrist, chronicles the harrowing account of his time working at a dreary mental hospital in New England. Through this internet message board, Parker hopes to communicate with the world his effort to cure one bewildering patient.
We learn, as Parker did on his first day at the hospital, of the facility’s most difficult, profoundly dangerous case—a forty-year-old man who was originally admitted to the hospital at age six. This patient has no known diagnosis. His symptoms seem to evolve over time. Every person who has attempted to treat him has been driven to madness or suicide.
Desperate and fearful, the hospital’s directors keep him strictly confined and allow minimal contact with staff for their own safety, convinced that releasing him would unleash catastrophe upon the outside world. Parker, brilliant and overconfident, takes it upon himself to discover what ails this patient and finally cure him. But from his first encounter with the mysterious patient, things spiral out of control and, facing a possibility beyond his wildest imaginings, Parker is forced to question everything he thought he knew.
Fans of Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes and Paul Tremblay’s The Cabin at the End of the World will be riveted by Jasper DeWitt’s astonishing debut.
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Community Reviews
I loved the concept of how our narrative was given to us - it's framed for us as a collection of posts pulled from a thread titled "Why I Almost Quit Medicine" on a website called MDConfessions.com. The author, who writes under a pseudonym, tells about about a job he took in a state psychiatric hospital.
"I write this because as of now, I am not sure if I am privy to a terrible secret or if I myself am insane."
Immediately upon discovering that bit of info, the setting for the story sent a shiver down my spine. A psychiatric hospital! My second favorite setting in a thriller/horror story! As we learn more and more about a mysterious patient who had been committed over 20 years, brought in as a 6 year old, one that no one even knew his name - my fascination grew and grew. So did my dread of what the root of the cause for this patient's condition. The author snowballed as the story progressed, meaning as more of the story was revealed, the fear and suspense kept growing and growing until its climax at the end....but this story and the implications it raises don't end with the last page. You'll have to read it to find out why...
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