Morgana W.

Complicated condition made approachable

Revisado: 09-29-19

The narrator of this was so captivating that I found myself checking multiple times if it was the author who was reading it. He just really captures the voices/personalities of each of the alters, and he even pronounces all the Chinese very fluently (from what I can tell).

The writing itself is very conversational, which I love in a memoir. I think Oxnam is, at times, a little too high-brow for your casual listener, which was at times a little alienating, but I think that worked well in the context of his story, as he was often feeling alienated from those around him.

The only real issue I had with this book was that it takes a long time to get into the meat of the stuff about DID, which was what I came for. That said, it’s a very necessary buildup to truly understand the suddenness and surprise of the appearance of the first alter. But until that moment, it is a fairly dry autobiography, told with a tone of emotionless distance in some ways, as though the writer was just listing a series of facts and dates. Then again, it was written by a man who was over the age of 50, so I can’t really take issue with him being detached from his childhood, especially given what comes to light about it.

SPOILERS AHEAD
I would’ve liked to know the end of the story, I think. In the very beginning, Robert explains that at the time of writing, he is the only remaining personality, but when the book actually ends, Bobby and Wanda are still there. Don’t get me wrong, I think the ending was beautiful and a very appropriate way to close things, but I’m still curious how long it was until Bobby gave in to the idea of integration and what it was that finally convinced him.

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