The Case of Thomas N. - Hardcover

Morley, John David

3.78

9 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871131528 ISBN 13: 9780871131522

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr, 1987

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Unable to remember his past despite a police investigation and psychiatric treatment, Thomas, a teenager, worries that he might be responsible for a new friends murder

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From Publishers Weekly:

Thomas N.'s case begins when he is found by a river in a city and, failing to satisfactorily answer a policeman's questions, is taken into custody. All he knows is that his first name is Thomas (the initial he's given stands for "name"). Judged to be about 16 years old, he seems, according to psychiatric observation, not to have lost his memory but to have been raised in complete isolation. While his speech and vocabulary are adequate, he does not use the pronoun I, nor does he have any vocabulary for self-reference. Sent first to an institution, he soon takes a menial job and moves to a boarding house. One day he meets a girl on a bus and goes to her house with a group of her friends where he drinks, takes some kind of drug and passes out. The next morning, he awakes to find the girl's head on a chair, her mutilated body in the next room and himself covered with blood. As it develops, the case against Thomas N. raises considerations about the nature of causality (posited against quantum theory), of guilt and innocence, of the limits of intellectual inquiry. With a style reminiscent of Simenon, a Kafkaesque situation and Dickensian characters, Morley has nevertheless written an intriquingly original work. Following his well-received Pictures from the Water Trade, this novel is a disturbing and affecting story.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Praised for the novelistic qualities of previous nonfiction books, Pictures from the Water Trade and In the Labyrinth, Morley has written a novel with a riveting premise: a 16-year-old amnesiac awakens, covered with blood, to find not a pile of clothes on the chair by the bed but a severed head. Unfortunately, it takes half the book to reach this scene, and only occasionally does the prose engage as fiction rather than case history. Aside from the final, well-rendered trial scene, there's no real drama involving people the reader can care about. Even young detective Havel, who somewhat unravels the case at the end, is not a solid figure. No great insights here into modern crime. Peter Bricklebank, English Dept., City Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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