Genre Fiction
![Graeme Macrae Burnet - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_graeme_macrae_burnet.jpg)
Case Study
Shortlisted for the 2022 Gordon Burn Prize • Shortlisted for the 2022 Ned Kelly Awards • Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize • Longlisted for the 2022 HWA Gold Crown Award
The Booker-shortlisted author of His Bloody Project blurs the lines between patient and therapist, fiction and documentation, and reality and dark imagination.
London, 1965. 'I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting myself in danger,' writes an anonymous patient, a young woman investigating her sister's suicide. In the guise of a dynamic and troubled alter-ego named Rebecca Smyth, she makes an appointment with the notorious and roughly charismatic psychotherapist Collins Braithwaite, whom she believes is responsible for her sister's death. But in this world of beguilement and bamboozlement, neither she nor we can be certain of anything.
Case Study is a novel as slippery as it is riveting, as playful as it is sinister, a meditation on truth, sanity, and the instability of identity by one of the most inventive novelists of our time.
The Booker-shortlisted author of His Bloody Project blurs the lines between patient and therapist, fiction and documentation, and reality and dark imagination.
London, 1965. 'I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting myself in danger,' writes an anonymous patient, a young woman investigating her sister's suicide. In the guise of a dynamic and troubled alter-ego named Rebecca Smyth, she makes an appointment with the notorious and roughly charismatic psychotherapist Collins Braithwaite, whom she believes is responsible for her sister's death. But in this world of beguilement and bamboozlement, neither she nor we can be certain of anything.
Case Study is a novel as slippery as it is riveting, as playful as it is sinister, a meditation on truth, sanity, and the instability of identity by one of the most inventive novelists of our time.
Editorial Reviews
Praise for Case Study
"A mystery story-or is it?-that takes us into the heart of the psychoanalytical consulting room. Or does it? Interleaving a biography of radical '60s 'untherapist' Collins Braithwaite with the notebooks of his patient 'Rebecca', a young woman seeking answers about the death of her sister, 'GMB' presents a forensic, elusive and mordantly funny text(s) layered with questions about authenticity and the self."
-2022 Booker Prize Jury Statement
"A twisting and often wickedly humorous work of crime fiction that meditates on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself."
-Gordon Burn Prize Jury Citation
"The fictional author and Burnet share the same initials, which should be a clue as to how close the book will come to breaking the fourth wall ... The matryoshka-style layering of narratives, each dependent on the other, is engaging and disorienting. Case Study is an immersive novel that stretches its fiction to fact-like proportions."
-Foreword Reviews (starred review)
"Case Study reflects on relationships of power: the physical power of abusive men over women, the lingering power of memory over oneself."
-The Michigan Daily
"It is a truly riveting novel, entertaining as it makes you question everything about it, and beautifully written. There are no wasted words in this book."
-Miramichi Reader
"A provocative send-up of midcentury British mores and the roots of modern psychotherapy … brisk and engaging."
-Kirkus
"Burnet's deployment of multiple narrative structures, his finely tuned depiction of Braithwaite, and the fascinating revelations of the diarist result in an unforgettable story, one that will rattle readers long after its startling, disorientating ending."
-Shelf Awareness
"Encourages us to look more closely at the inherent instability of fiction itself … genuinely affecting … a very funny book."
-Nina Allan, The Guardian
"Brilliant, bamboozling … Burnet captures his characters' voices so brilliantly that what might ...
"A mystery story-or is it?-that takes us into the heart of the psychoanalytical consulting room. Or does it? Interleaving a biography of radical '60s 'untherapist' Collins Braithwaite with the notebooks of his patient 'Rebecca', a young woman seeking answers about the death of her sister, 'GMB' presents a forensic, elusive and mordantly funny text(s) layered with questions about authenticity and the self."
-2022 Booker Prize Jury Statement
"A twisting and often wickedly humorous work of crime fiction that meditates on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself."
-Gordon Burn Prize Jury Citation
"The fictional author and Burnet share the same initials, which should be a clue as to how close the book will come to breaking the fourth wall ... The matryoshka-style layering of narratives, each dependent on the other, is engaging and disorienting. Case Study is an immersive novel that stretches its fiction to fact-like proportions."
-Foreword Reviews (starred review)
"Case Study reflects on relationships of power: the physical power of abusive men over women, the lingering power of memory over oneself."
-The Michigan Daily
"It is a truly riveting novel, entertaining as it makes you question everything about it, and beautifully written. There are no wasted words in this book."
-Miramichi Reader
"A provocative send-up of midcentury British mores and the roots of modern psychotherapy … brisk and engaging."
-Kirkus
"Burnet's deployment of multiple narrative structures, his finely tuned depiction of Braithwaite, and the fascinating revelations of the diarist result in an unforgettable story, one that will rattle readers long after its startling, disorientating ending."
-Shelf Awareness
"Encourages us to look more closely at the inherent instability of fiction itself … genuinely affecting … a very funny book."
-Nina Allan, The Guardian
"Brilliant, bamboozling … Burnet captures his characters' voices so brilliantly that what might ...
Readers Top Reviews
Ralph Blumenau
This is GBM revisiting all his former techniques in attempting to bamboozle the reader which (for me) have now worn very thin. There is the usual collection of unsympathetic and unreliable protagonists and the usual mixture of fakery and a few 'real' identities. At the end, in a fake postscript, he writes of the factual errors (obviously deliberate) in describing places in 1960s London. He fails to notice, however, that his 'own' supposedly reliable authorship voice wrongly describes a character as working for the Crown Prosecution Service. This was not established until 1985 and before that it there was simply an office of the DPP--hoist by his own petard. I am always uncomfortable when real persons (now dead) are integrated into fiction, especially when actual words and thoughts are attributed to them. The dead cannot make a rebuttal or sue for libel and so are easy targets. The book is well written, but I think this is a case of an overused device and yet another parade of sad and depressing characters.
debbieg
I loved His Bloody Project so bought this straight away. I don’t ever remember carting a book around the house with me so I could read it at every spare minute. It works on so many levels and is so unusual that I think people will have strong opinions about it. I, for one, think it’s brilliant. Set in 1965, a sheltered young woman believes a charismatic celebrity psychotherapist encouraged her sister to take her own life. She decides to consult him herself under a false identity.
A. Hunt
Like this author's previous novels, there are many layers to this book and no simple answers at the end, but the characters will stay with you and you'll want to go back to the first page and reread it all straight away. It's pure fiction masquerading as a set of real, found diaries, interspersed with a biography of a figure from the 60s who feels so real that, like every other reviewer, I googled for him. It turns out that he's made up too, but he's so, so realistic that he almost walks off the pages to sneer, harangue or lecture you himself. There are overlaps between Case Study and all the author's previous work; a few common themes and the clever use of metafictional devices that seem to be 'GMB's' trademark. This time, though, the humour is much more explicit. It's extremely well observed, and the dynamic between the characters is brilliant, as is their setting and the story itself. And there's not a wasted word anywhere, nor a clumsy one. In short: Brilliant, just brilliant!
kinsey101Constantine
Author needs to take a break and work harder on his next book. I absolutely loved The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau, His Bloody Project and The Accident on the A35, and was hugely excited to dig into this. He is one of the few authors whose books I anticipate with genuine interest. Sadly this is a huge drop off in quality. When I finished it, I actually had a hard time digesting the fact that the book was as inconsequential and thrown together as it was, given his earlier work. Seriously underwhelming I'm afraid.
Short Excerpt Teaser
The First Notebook
I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting myself in danger, and if proved to be right (a rare occurrence admittedly), this notebook might serve as some kind of evidence.
Regrettably, as will become clear, I have little talent for composition. As I read over my previous sentence I do rather cringe, but if I dilly-dally over style I fear I will never get anywhere. Miss Lyle, my English mistress, used to chide me for trying to cram too many thoughts into a single sentence. This, she said, was a sign of a disorderly mind. ‘You must first decide what it is you wish to say, then express it in the plainest terms.' That was her mantra, and though it is doubtless a good one, I can see that I have already failed. I have said that I may be putting myself in danger, but there I go, off on an irrelevant digression. Rather than beginning again, however, I shall press on. What matters here is substance rather than style; that these pages constitute a record of what is to occur. It may be that were my narrative too polished, it might lack credibility; that somehow the ring of truth lies in infelicity. In any case, I cannot follow Miss Lyle's advice, as I do not yet know what it is I wish to say. However, for the sake of anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves reading this, I will endeavour to be clear: to express myself in the plainest terms.
In this spirit, I shall begin by stating the facts. The danger to which I have alluded comes in the person of Collins Braithwaite. You will have heard him described in the press as ‘Britain's most dangerous man', this on account of his ideas about psychiatry. It is my belief, however, that it is not merely his ideas that are dangerous. I am convinced, you see, that Dr Braithwaite killed my sister, Veronica. I do not mean that he murdered her in the normal sense of the word, but that he is, nonetheless, as responsible for her death as if he had strangled her with his bare hands. Two years ago, Veronica threw herself from the overpass at Bridge Approach in Camden and was killed by the 4.45 to High Barnet. You could hardly imagine a person less likely to commit such an act. She was twenty-six years old, intelligent, successful and passably attractive. Regardless of this, she had, unbeknown to my father and me, been consulting Dr Braithwaite for some weeks. This I know from his own account.
Like most people in England I was familiar with Dr Braithwaite's uncouth Northern drawl long before I encountered him in person. I had heard him speaking on the wireless, and had even once seen him on television. The programme was a discussion of psychiatry hosted by Joan Bakewell.* Braithwaite's appearance was no more attractive than his voice. He wore an open-necked shirt and no jacket. His hair, which reached to his collar, was dishevelled, and he smoked constantly. His features were large, as if they had been exaggerated by a caricaturist, but there was something, even on television, that drew one's eyes to him. I was only vaguely aware of the other guests in the studio. I remember less of what he actually said than his manner of delivering it. He had the air of a man to whom it would be futile to offer resistance. He spoke with a weary authority, as if tired of explaining himself to his inferiors. The participants were seated in a semi-circle with Miss Bakewell in the centre. While the others sat up straight, as if attending church, Dr Braithwaite slouched in his seat like a bored schoolboy, his chin slumped on the palm of his hand. He appeared to regard the other contributors with a mixture of contempt and boredom. Towards the end of the programme, he gathered up his smoking materials and walked off the set, muttering an expletive that there is no need to repeat here. Miss Bakewell was taken aback, but quickly recovered her composure and remarked that it was an admission of the poverty of her guest's ideas that he was unwilling to engage in debate with his peers.
The following day's newspapers were filled with condemnation of Dr Braithwaite's behaviour: he was the embodiment of everything that was wrong with modern Britain; his books were filled with the most obscene ideas and displayed the basest view of human nature. Naturally, the following day I visited Foyle's during my lunch hour and asked for a copy of his most recent book, which laboured under the unappealing title of Untherapy. The cashier handled the volume as though it carried the danger of infection, and gave me a disapproving look I had not experien...
I have decided to write down everything that happens, because I feel, I suppose, I may be putting myself in danger, and if proved to be right (a rare occurrence admittedly), this notebook might serve as some kind of evidence.
Regrettably, as will become clear, I have little talent for composition. As I read over my previous sentence I do rather cringe, but if I dilly-dally over style I fear I will never get anywhere. Miss Lyle, my English mistress, used to chide me for trying to cram too many thoughts into a single sentence. This, she said, was a sign of a disorderly mind. ‘You must first decide what it is you wish to say, then express it in the plainest terms.' That was her mantra, and though it is doubtless a good one, I can see that I have already failed. I have said that I may be putting myself in danger, but there I go, off on an irrelevant digression. Rather than beginning again, however, I shall press on. What matters here is substance rather than style; that these pages constitute a record of what is to occur. It may be that were my narrative too polished, it might lack credibility; that somehow the ring of truth lies in infelicity. In any case, I cannot follow Miss Lyle's advice, as I do not yet know what it is I wish to say. However, for the sake of anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves reading this, I will endeavour to be clear: to express myself in the plainest terms.
In this spirit, I shall begin by stating the facts. The danger to which I have alluded comes in the person of Collins Braithwaite. You will have heard him described in the press as ‘Britain's most dangerous man', this on account of his ideas about psychiatry. It is my belief, however, that it is not merely his ideas that are dangerous. I am convinced, you see, that Dr Braithwaite killed my sister, Veronica. I do not mean that he murdered her in the normal sense of the word, but that he is, nonetheless, as responsible for her death as if he had strangled her with his bare hands. Two years ago, Veronica threw herself from the overpass at Bridge Approach in Camden and was killed by the 4.45 to High Barnet. You could hardly imagine a person less likely to commit such an act. She was twenty-six years old, intelligent, successful and passably attractive. Regardless of this, she had, unbeknown to my father and me, been consulting Dr Braithwaite for some weeks. This I know from his own account.
Like most people in England I was familiar with Dr Braithwaite's uncouth Northern drawl long before I encountered him in person. I had heard him speaking on the wireless, and had even once seen him on television. The programme was a discussion of psychiatry hosted by Joan Bakewell.* Braithwaite's appearance was no more attractive than his voice. He wore an open-necked shirt and no jacket. His hair, which reached to his collar, was dishevelled, and he smoked constantly. His features were large, as if they had been exaggerated by a caricaturist, but there was something, even on television, that drew one's eyes to him. I was only vaguely aware of the other guests in the studio. I remember less of what he actually said than his manner of delivering it. He had the air of a man to whom it would be futile to offer resistance. He spoke with a weary authority, as if tired of explaining himself to his inferiors. The participants were seated in a semi-circle with Miss Bakewell in the centre. While the others sat up straight, as if attending church, Dr Braithwaite slouched in his seat like a bored schoolboy, his chin slumped on the palm of his hand. He appeared to regard the other contributors with a mixture of contempt and boredom. Towards the end of the programme, he gathered up his smoking materials and walked off the set, muttering an expletive that there is no need to repeat here. Miss Bakewell was taken aback, but quickly recovered her composure and remarked that it was an admission of the poverty of her guest's ideas that he was unwilling to engage in debate with his peers.
The following day's newspapers were filled with condemnation of Dr Braithwaite's behaviour: he was the embodiment of everything that was wrong with modern Britain; his books were filled with the most obscene ideas and displayed the basest view of human nature. Naturally, the following day I visited Foyle's during my lunch hour and asked for a copy of his most recent book, which laboured under the unappealing title of Untherapy. The cashier handled the volume as though it carried the danger of infection, and gave me a disapproving look I had not experien...
