by Knopf
First published 2022
Alicia Western arrives at a hospital in Black River Falls in 1972 with forty thousand dollars in a plastic bag. She is twenty years old, a mathematics doctoral student at the University of Chicago, and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. During her psychiatric sessions, Alicia refuses to discuss her brother Bobby, though she grieves for him constantly. She talks instead about the nature of madness and questions why people insist on sharing one common view of reality. She remembers her childhood, when her grandmother already feared for her by age seven. She explores connections between physics and philosophy while introducing the hallucinations only she can see. Alicia wrestles with fundamental questions about God, truth, and existence as she mourns Bobby, who remains neither fully dead nor fully hers. This second volume of The Passenger series presents her story entirely through transcripts of her therapy sessions.
Genres: literary-fiction, mental-illness, contemporary, psychological-thriller, academic
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Black River Falls, University of Chicago
Period: 1972
Audio CD · Random House Audio
Content warnings: mental-illness