His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations-a search for the truth that threatens to consume him….
Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.Īlicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety.
The silent patient read online windows#
A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. Half an hour later, their neighbor, Barbie Hellmann, heard several gunshots.Book blurb Only she knows what happened only I can make her speak.Īlicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. In the end, Gabriel’s shoot ran late, and he wasn’t driven home until eleven p.m. It’s likely she spent the day painting in the summerhouse at the end of the garden, which she had recently converted into a studio.
She had an upcoming exhibition and was behind with her work.
Not much is known about Alicia’s movements. He spent the day photographing models on a rooftop for Vogue. from the house he shared with Alicia in northwest London, on the edge of Hampstead Heath, and he was driven to a shoot in Shoreditch. On the last day of his life, Gabriel rose early. The day he died was the hottest of the year. He was killed on the twenty-fifth of August-it was an unusually hot summer, you may remember, with some of the highest temperatures ever recorded. Gabriel Berenson was murdered six years ago. Apart from her technical skill, her paintings have an uncanny ability to grab your attention-by the throat, almost-and hold it in a viselike grip. And you might well accuse me of being biased.Īll I can offer is my opinion, for what it’s worth. Her talent will always be overshadowed by her notoriety, so it’s hard to be objective. I don’t know enough about art to say whether Alicia Berenson will stand the test of time as a painter. It has none of the visceral quality of Alicia’s best work. I find his stuff rather slick and shallow, to be honest. Since his death, the price of his photographs has increased astronomically. He had a distinctive style, shooting semi-starved, semi-naked women in strange, unflattering angles. They were both artists-Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer. SIGMUND FREUD, Introductory Lectures on PsychoanalysisĪLICIA BERENSON WAS THIRTY-THREE YEARS OLD when she killed her husband. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips betrayal oozes out of him at every pore. He that has eyes to see and ears to hear mayĬonvince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. I’m only going to write positive, happy, normal thoughts. This is going to be a joyful record of ideas and images that inspire me artistically, things that make a creative impact on me. I love him so totally, completely, sometimes it threatens to overwhelm me. I don’t ever want to cause him any distress or make him unhappy or cause him pain. I can’t bear the thought of him worrying about me. L reason I agreed to keep this diary was to reassure him-prove that I’m okay.