Triple Boy

by Dale Carlson

Guilt over his brother's death and trauma over his parents' divorce have created two additional personalities in Paul. His friend, a psychiatry resident, tries to help him.

Genres: Fiction

172 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Dale Elissa Bick Carlson
Also published as Dale Bick Carlson

Reviews

[Iamshadow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished this one yesterday, Triple Boy by Dale Carlson. It's a young adult novel aimed at teenagers about a multiple protagonist. It's a mixed bag. It starts right in without proper introductions, but then, after a bit of wobbling around, just as it feels like it's developing into a story, it just stops. So, there are major story/pacing problems. There are a couple of OH HELL NO moments, most notably an adult deliberately spilling boiling water on the main character's hand to trigger a switch (and especially as verbal triggers had been enough before and after this incident). It just seemed completely unnecessary and cruel. Also, a system member is labelled 'retarded' by that same adult because he's happy, friendly, and a little more childish than the others when he's probably just younger. Apart from that, there's a lot that the author described really well and got right. This was early days - the book has a publication date of 1977 - but she describes Paul's system well, and seems to get how systems work and how the different members counterbalance each other. Paul's trauma is not sexual. His initial split is linked to seeing his brother's violent death, something I think Carlson took directly from Chris Costner Sizemore. (Chris, known as Eve, one of the most famous multiples, was initially split by deaths close to them and didn't experience sexual trauma until they were in their late teens, long after their system was established. Theirs was one of the only personal accounts at the time this was published.) Also, the cover, with its intricate coloured pencil crosshatching, is GORGEOUS. It's just a shame the book as a whole isn't as good.