Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet *****

Reading dates: 11 – 30 December 2021

A really brilliant and elegant novel, covering so many things I love: psychiatry and mystery with a wonderful unreliable narrator and clever stylistic turns. I really recommend it. I wish I could go for a drink with the author to have a natter about this book and the format of the case study in particular. It does and does not feature. It is a very curious narrative form, precise and yet also very creative – to the point of fiction sometimes – as Sigmund Freud clearly showed. I am writing about his prose style and own involvement in his Dora case.

I loved the appearances of Ronnie Laing in the narrative and how the main psychiatrist is partly him but also has little hints of Jacques Lacan, I think. Top novel.