Artist Alicia Berenson is committed to a psychiatric hospital after killing her husband, Gabriel. As the title implies, she refuses to explain her motivations for murdering her husband, and therapist Theo takes on her case. The book portrays her as a painter, and the text’s descriptions of her art seemed to bear similarity to the works of Ben Long and Lucian Freud. Fitting, given this is a story about a therapist trying to communicate with his patient, who is an artist, and Lucian was descended from Sigmund Freud. I cite Lucian Freud because of an ethically suspect portrait Berenson painted of a hated aunt named Lydia Rose.

Alicia depicted the relative (without her permission) in a nude state and the painting ends up displayed in a gallery for public viewing. The text constantly reminds us that the aunt was terrible (To the best of my memories, examples of the aunt’s behavior were left vague) to Alicia, so the nonconsensual portrait was, in the text’s eyes, perfectly justified. Still, everyone in the text is too busy being repulsed by the woman’s disabled and obese form to consider her lack of consent. The characterization of this portrait reminded me of Lucian Freud’s (NSFW) portraits of Sue Tilley. I compare Berenson’s work to Ben Long’s work because the text describes a painting she made of her husband, Gabriel, in a Crucifixion pose that reminded me of a Ben Long fresco.  

My picture of Ben Long’s Crucifixion mural from Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church in North Carolina.

The book also explored the connection between Victorian architecture and the people who inhabit these old buildings, portraying them as disturbed, isolated, and victims of their vices. Grove, the fictional psychiatric institution where Theo works and Berenson is interred, made me think of Broadmoor Hospital, a building constructed during the reign of Queen Victoria. Aunt Lydia Rose, poor and dependent on her gambling addict relative, Paul, lives in a building from the same era.  

Andrew Smith / Broadmoor Hospital

Lastly, the book gave an abundance of statue metaphors, with Alicia’s memories of a stalker who stood motionless while watching her before Gabriel’s murder, whom she also compared to Hellenic sculpture. Even Theo likens his girlfriend, Kathryn, to a statue. Alicia, in her silence, is compared to a Sphinx, a creature known for their riddles.

Rijksmuseum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons