Sunday, October 6, 2024

George Point's Book Review of 'Little Bit of Faith' posted Oct 3, 2024 in the Bucks County Herald

 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.


https://buckscounty.prenly.com/p/the-bucks-county-herald/10-3-24/a/george-point-book-talk-little-bit-of-faith/7159/1657715/57306165


 

No comments:

Post a Comment