Books, films, and web sites about multiplicity

 

The following list is by no means comprehensive. Interest in multiple personality disorder has generated a staggering amount of media, and the best I can hope to do here is offer a few pointers on where to start wading.

   Books: Nonfiction

Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber — For many people, this 1973 bestseller is still the archetypal MPD case history—the book that defines what multiple personality is and how it ought to be treated. Because of this archetypal status, Sybil continues to draw criticism, both from skeptics who believe the “true-to-life” story is exaggerated or a hoax, and from other multiple personalities, who dispute Sybil’s portrayal of their condition. Wherever you stand on the question of its authenticity, I think it’s a well-written and interesting book.

Additional information about Sybil can be found on the “Controversy” page of Astraea’s Web, which has links to news articles about Sybil’s true identity and about recent accusations that she wasn’t really a multiple.

When Rabbit Howls by The Troops for Truddi Chase — An autobiography of a multiple household who decided (collectively) not to attempt reintegration into a single personality, but instead developed mechanisms for coexisting as a stable multiplicity. This book gave me a lot of ideas for Set This House in Order.

The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes — The controversial story of a man acquitted of kidnapping and rape charges on the grounds that he was a multiple personality who could not control his actions. Raises some interesting questions about personal responsibility; despite a sympathetic portrayal by Keyes, I got the sense that Milligan suffered as much from bad moral character(s) as he did from MPD. A sequel, The Milligan Wars, has been published in Japan, and is supposed to be released in the U.S. as a tie-in to a film version of Milligan’s story.

Books: Fiction

The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson — Little known, but excellent, novel about a woman with MPD, by the author of “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House. Elizabeth R. lives with her aunt and works an anonymous job at a local museum. One day, she starts receiving hate mail...from herself. Jackson does an especially nice job of portraying how confusing it must be to be an undiagnosed multiple. In one priceless early scene, Elizabeth attends a dinner party where one of her alters repeatedly pops out and insults the host; but since the entire scene is written from Elizabeth’s perspective, we, like she, have to infer what is going on from the host’s reactions. The Bird’s Nest is currently out of print and may be hard to track down, but it’s worth the effort.

Macroscope by Piers Anthony — Somewhat dated late-‘60s SF novel featuring a protagonist who turns out to be a figment of his own imagination. Not intended as a portrayal of MPD, but the power struggle between two personalities (one naive and good, the other cunning and evil) is still intriguing.

Doom Patrol — A DC comic book series that, like The X-Men, concerned the exploits of a band of superheroes. The series’ second run included a multiple character named Crazy Jane, each of whose 64 personalities had their own superpower. I missed Doom Patrol when it first came out, but it’s been recommended to me by a number of Set This House in Order fans, so I’m keeping my eyes peeled for a reprint or a cheap set of back issues. More information about the series can be found here.

Films: Docudrama

Sybil — The 1976 TV-movie adaptation of Sybil may be even more famous than the book. After being unavailable for years, it was recently rereleased on DVD.

My impressions of the film—based on an abridged two-hour video version—are mixed. There’s no question it’s very well done: Sally Field turns in a phenomenal acting performance, and because she’s so good, the filmmakers are able to convey Sybil’s experience of MPD with only minimal exposition. I have to say, though, this is an incredibly grueling film to actually sit and watch. Maybe the full-length version does a better job of breaking up the heavy stuff with lighter moments, but on VHS it’s basically two hours of non-stop, painfully realistic fear and anguish. And the final flashback sequence, where we see the young Sybil being hung upside-down from a light fixture so her mother can torture her with knives, a shoe-button hook, and an enema bag, is just too much: I understand what the filmmakers were trying to do—dramatize Sybil’s final reintegration by having her face her absolute worst childhood memory—but I think they should have found a less grotesque way to do it.

Despite these reservations I’d recommend this film to people who think they can handle it.

 

Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase — Another TV-movie adaptation, this one of When Rabbit Howls. I’ve never seen it, but the knowledge that it stars Shelley Long does not fill me with optimism.

Films: Comedy

Me, Myself & Irene — Jim Carrey as a multiple personality and Renée Zellweger as the woman who loves them. This movie gave me a bad scare: I was about halfway through the writing of Set This House in Order when I heard that Carrey was due to star in a “romance” about MPD, and of course my first thought was that Hollywood had beaten me to the punch. Then I saw a preview for the film, and realized I had nothing to worry about. I still haven’t seen the movie itself, but having been pleasantly surprised by Shallow Hal, another film by the same directors, I’ll probably end up giving Irene a try someday.

Films: Horror/Suspense

Split personality and other dissociative states are a common gimmick in horror films, where they serve as the modern, scientific equivalent of lycanthropy or demonic possession. Real-life multiples are understandably not flattered by the metaphor, but I think the key to these movies’ popularity is that everyone has a dark side, and everyone worries about what would happen if the “bad me” got out—or got found out.

Psycho — A classic of the genre, Alfred Hitchcock’s story about a boy who overidentifies with his mother has spawned three official sequels, a remake, and numerous imitations (e.g., Dressed to Kill). Earns extra political incorrectness points for slurring transvestites as well as multiples, but it’s a great film, so deal with it.

Color of Night — ...and then there are the psycho-killer-multiple movies, like this one, that just flat-out suck. Bruce Willis plays a psychiatrist who contracts hysterical color-blindness after one of his patients commits suicide in a particularly bloody fashion. Later, when one of Willis’ colleagues is stabbed to death in his office, Willis moves into the guy’s house, takes over his practice (if you question the logic of this, you’re already too smart for this movie), and gets involved with a mysterious young woman who ten seconds’ thought would tell you is probably the killer. The woman is played by British actress Jane March, and she’s really the only reason to watch Color of Night—if you didn't see quite enough of her naked body in her previous film, The Lover, this should satisfy you.

Session 9 — A stylish and very creepy film about a hazardous-materials disposal crew hired to remove asbestos from an abandoned mental asylum. While nosing around in the basement, one of the workmen finds a box of old reel-to-reel audiotapes, recordings of therapy sessions with a patient named Mary Hobbes, a multiple personality who did something very, very bad on Christmas night many years ago. Curious to learn what exactly Mary did, the workman begins sneaking back down to the basement whenever he can to listen to the tapes.

Not long afterwards, one of the other crew members goes missing in the middle of the night. His coworkers think he’s won the lottery and run off to Miami, but we know that something more sinister happened. Is the ghost of Mary Hobbes stalking the men, or is there a werewolf on the work crew? All will be revealed after Therapy Session 9.

Angel Heart — Mickey Rourke plays Harry Angel, a private detective who suffers from what you might call a supernatural dissociative disorder, until a client named Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) helps him find his true self.

Identity — “It’s Sybil meets Ten Little Indians.” I imagine that was the pitch line for this whodunit/slasher flick, which despite a clever premise and a great cast isn’t nearly as satisfying as it ought to be. Part of the problem, for me at least, is that the surprise twist wasn’t a surprise—I figured out what was really going on about twenty minutes into the film, which left me free to wonder what M. Night Shyamalan or Christopher Nolan might have done with the same material.

On The Web

Astraea’s Web — Authored and maintained by a multiple household, this web site tries to make the case that multiplicity is not a disorder at all, but “a psychoneurological trait like being left-handed”; rather than fragmenting as a result of childhood abuse, Astraea argues, multiples are just born that way, and the reason we only hear about the abuse cases is because they’re the ones who end up going to psychiatrists. It’s an interesting hypothesis, albeit one that is not helped, in my opinion, by Astraea’s further assertion that multiple households frequently include the reincarnated spirits of dead people. The site offers lots of links, essays, and an extensive book list. Definitely worth a visit.

Set This House in Order / Home