Howard Batey reviewed Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet
Case Study
5 stars
Terrific!
320 pages
English language
Published Jan. 1, 2021 by Saraband / Contraband.
"I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting myself in danger." London, 1965. An unworldly young woman believes that a charismatic psychotherapist, Collins Braithwaite, has driven her sister to suicide. Intent on confirming her suspicions, she assumes a false identity and presents herself to him as a client, recording her experiences in a series of notebooks. But she soon finds herself drawn into a world in which she can no longer be certain of anything. Even her own character. In Case Study, Graeme Macrae Burnet presents these notebooks interspersed with his own biographical research into Collins Braithwaite. The result is a dazzling - and often wickedly humorous - meditation on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself, by one of the most inventive novelists writing today.
Terrific!
Entertaining read, I really loved the character development of "Rebecca Smyth" and how difficult Burnet makes it to take this as fiction. It is one of those books you start and finish in one go.
5/5