The Hypnotist’s Love Story, by Liane Moriarty, Macmillan Australia, $32.99.
Australian author Liane Moriarty is a regular choice for our Great Read and with The Hypnotist’s Love Story she’s done it again.
This is a gripping romance with a thriller edge that probes the rather in-vogue subject of stalking in an intriguing way.
The tale filters through two voices: that of Ellen, who has just started dating single father Patrick, and of Saskia, Patrick’s ex-girlfriend, who has been ritually stalking him for three years since their break-up. What is fascinating is that we’re sympathetic to both characters.
Ellen is a hypnotherapist who, despite being surrounded by sceptics, is an extremely successful practitioner.
The book opens at the genesis of Ellen’s relationship with Patrick. They’re on their fourth date in a restaurant and Patrick declares he has something to tell her, but then disappears.
When he returns, he reveals he has a stalker who has been watching them from another table. It’s a chilling moment, which ironically also excites Ellen and sparks a full-blown relationship. And as their love grows, so the stalking steps up a notch.
“I woke up early, ravenous for information,” says stalker Saskia. “What were they doing right that moment? Had he stayed at her place? Had she stayed at his? My need to know felt physical, like a nutritional deficiency.”
Is Saskia as crazed as she sounds? What’s interesting is that, like Ellen, we’re drawn to this lost woman, which is perhaps a very female reaction.
We take her side over Patrick’s and the overriding question in this compelling triangle is not so much what will Saskia do next, but what did Patrick do to her to leave her so unstable and desperate.
Liane poses the question of whether, maybe, there’s a stalker in all of us, as Ellen cleverly employs her own brand of stalking, by using hypnosis to put Patrick in a trance and spy on his emotions for his first, now dead, wife.
It’s a clever device, but what lifts this tale to another plane is the level of empathy that runs through her narrative, making the reader as emotionally involved as her characters.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
