George Point: Book Talk! “Little Bit of Faith”
“Who am I?” With that opening line, author Saverio Monachino
raises a question that is plaguing Dr. Emily Selwood, a principal character in
the psychological fiction novel “Little Bit of Faith” (Ingram Spark). It is
also a fundamental question that the author invites all of us, himself
included, to ponder we as we delve deeper into the cause of Selwood’s
self-doubt.
Dr. Selwood, a clinical neuropsychologist, has checked
herself into Greystone psychiatric hospital, in the throes of a profound
identity crisis. Dosing on meds and caffeine, she contemplates the
circumstances that have brought her to this juncture in her life.
She soon reveals that a situation involving a patient, one
Arthur McAiden, a Ph.D. specializing in the philosophy of science, has brought
her to this point. Wracked with self-doubt about her professional incompetence,
she trusts the resolution of her quandary to Dr. Tey, department head at
Greystone.
“Who am I?” is the first line of Dr. Selwood’s journal, and
as we read on we’re immediately confronted with a dilemma. Dr. Selwood seems to
be the narrator of the story yet to unfold, but, as a patient (albeit a
voluntary one) in a psychiatric institution, is she a reliable one? It’s the
first of many conundrums that Monachino asks us to ponder as we page through
“Little Bit of Faith.”
Arthur McAiden has been placed under Selwood’s care as he
recovers from a traumatic brain injury (TBI), the result of a tragic automobile
accident. Physically recovering, but suffering from deficits in all measurable
levels of cognition, a positive outcome for McAiden is far from assured.
McAiden’s condition has a real-life connection to author
Monachino, once afflicted with a traumatic brain injury that left him in a coma
and was followed by a long and arduous period of rehabilitation and recovery.
“Little Bit of Faith” is part of that recovery process.
As Monochano has stated, “As my ability to exist in the
three-dimentional space we live in returned, memories of what I experienced
began to fade. The story is fiction, the underlying revelations, I hope, are
closer to reality.”
As part of her plan for McAiden’s recovery, Selwood engages
him in what she believes will be a simple, but telling exercise, asking him to
write down his account of the accident that nearly ended his life.
McAiden complies, and what follows is McAiden’s account of
the accident gleaned over six mon-the of his treatment. But the result is
nothing that Selwood could have expected. What should have been a simple, if
incomplete, narrative is instead a detailed account told from the perspective
of an omniscient observer. The details of safety issues concerning the
intersection where the accident took place, the conversation of neighbors,
witnesses and first responders, and other details that McAiden could not possibly
have known.
Is the account that Selwood is asking us to believe a tale
told by an unreliable narrator? Or is McAiden really an omniscient observer
(impossible?), a fabulist of the highest order, or…? And there is more, much
more to ponder in “Little Bit of Faith,” as Monachino leads us through Arthur
McAiden’s comatose, fevered inner life, weaving tales of an international
bioterrorist plot, a plot to wrest control of his biotech company, and a plot
to topple another Arthur — a medieval Arthur — as well as Chaucer’s “The
Miller’s Tale.”
Improbable as it may seem, Monachino’s gentle wit and
informed narrative style are the glue that hold this metaphysical melange
together. If you’re game to take a deep dive into the nature of consciousness,
of bosons and other subatomic particles and the search for the ultimate
intelligence, with a side trip into the Arthurian legend, “Little Bit of Faith”
may just be your cup of mead. More at comicfictionnoir.com.
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