Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 34

Page 34 JfkiwDEtjpiiMx3EiL BOOKS- I vtiWu jOaaovo O. iirf Personality? This Woman Had Plenty (92, Actually) Confusing study of a psychological disorder -iA as- v.V.V.V-. V. -nil y-w7. mmmsm a book that deals with a rather fascinating subject t- but more on that later.

While the malady is difficult for psychiatrists, let alone for laymen, to understand, multiple personality disorders seem to exist. They do not appear to be the product of someone's clever or diabolical imagination, at least to those professionals who have worked with peo-: pie afflicted by the baffling disorder. Chase's case is so fascinating because there are so many different personalities: The Rabbit in the title is a personality too young for speech but not too young to howl in anguish over unspoken torment. The other 91 some male and some female all have their own handwriting, accents and even body postures. In 1981.

when Chase was SO, she sought psychiatric help. Since then she has been working with Dr. Robert A. Phillips, a staff therapist and consultant with the Human Sexuality Institute in Washington, D.C., and a consultant to the Chesapeake Institute in Kensington. Md.

Phillips helped put together this book, which largely represents an attempt to have each personality speak, There appears no question that Chase's life-lias been a living hell. But there doesnt seem to be a reason why this book has to be the same for the reader. In the attempt to present an accurate depiction of Chase's disorder, each personality is presented in the same come-and-go fashion in which each manifests itself in Chase. handwriting of some of her personalities, taken from a draft of the book 1 '(JU -s: Truddi Chase, with samples of the Thus, one chapter can have Rabbit howling, followed by the sharp-eyed business voice of Ten-Four and then by Ean, an Irish philsopher and poet It's maddening for the reader be- cause the presentation becomes too undisclosed suspicious "past." "A Puzzle for Fools" by Patrick Quentin (Penguin Classic Crime, SS.9S), originally published in 1936. This clever first-person tale is told by one Peter Deluth.

who has checked himself into a private mental hospital to be cured of alcoholism. Unlike many of his mates, Deluth is not out of touch with reality. But reality in this hospital is pretty crazy stuff. One of the staff is horribly murdered. Deluth finds that detecting keeps his mind off booze.

It's a tricky business be-cauase the staff is loonier and the patients saner than one might expect. Quentin is a stylish writer, or rather, he is a pair of stylish writers whose real names are Hugh Wheeler and Richard W. Webb. Under his own name. Wheeler wrote the script for the Broadway musicals "Sweeney Todd" and 'A Little Night Music." "Locked Room Puzzles," edited by Martin.

Greenberg and Bill Pronzini (Academy Chicago, S4.95) is a collection of four previously published (from 1948 to 1983) novellas in which the victim dies either in a room locked from the inside or an equivalent location. The detective has to figure out how the murderer got in and out. Very tricky, these murderers. Rose DeWolf is a Daily News, staff writer. mm 111.

A I I 3.1 VI Vlji I eta zk va-c. a more coherent treatment of the material before any lay person can begin to comprehend the strange story of Truddi Chase. Paul Maryniak is a Daily News staff writer. forging iliary entries to prove it. --Her father, Jonathan, is willing to pay whatever it costs to keep Melissa alive so long as he doesn't have to Visit ber.

7 Her brother, Daniel, is thinking about killing her. And one of her sisters is using the interest Melissa's condition has created as boyfriend bait, is a family unhappy in ways not even Tolstoy could have imagined. Yet the Silversteins do grow on you. especially Melissa. She's taking charge of her own life for the first time now that it's nearly extin guished, and she's doing it with flair.

DVin hoc sa laon mm f--n 4-itoi1 nvsA 1 lets her down. Melissa's younger sisters speak in a teen-age pidgin English that takes some getting used to but eventually rings true. Her Aunt Alison, on the other hand, speaks in an accent Melissa describes, as Levin's continual attempts to capture this bewildering accent on paper prove distracting. Ellen Gray is a Daily News staff writer. confusing.

Even a close reading of the material is apt to drive a reader wild. The subject of "Rabbit" certainly makes for compelling non-fiction. Unfortunately, we will have to await "When Rabbit Howls" By The Troops for Truddi Chase. E.P. Dutton.

$18.95 415 pages. Hard cover. Reviewed by PAUL MARYNIAK Daily News Staff Writer IV there is no mistake in how the Daily News has identified the producers of this book. There is no singular author. In fact, there are 92 of them all personalities belonging to Truddi Chase, a Rochester woman who has been diagnosed as suffering from a multiple personality disorder a psychiatric malady in which one person is actually two or more people.

Unlike others who have been diagnosed as having this ailment and who have been the subject of books that include "The Three Faces of Eve," "Sybil," and "The Minds of Billy Mulligan" Truddi Chase is in a class by herself because, as her psychiatrist asserts, there is no "real" Truddi Chase. Chase Vas so traumatized by sexual and other abuse by her father, starting from the time she was 2, that, asserts her psychiatrist, the personality Chase was born with virtually has been obliterated. In its place are 92 personalities that come and go as easily and as frequently as the wind: "The Troops of Truddi Chase" is the collective description for these 92 personalities. That collective noun also represents the most annoying aspect about Detectives on Reviewed by ROSE DeWOLF Ever since publishers discovered how cheap and therefore profitable it is to reissue mystery novels long out of print, bookstores have been flooded with these oldies. And a good thing it is, too.

It's fun to discover a book like "The Red Thumb Mark" by R. Austin Freeman (Dover. SS.95), which originally was published in London in 1907 and presumably hasnt been seen since. In this novel, a bloody fingerprint found inside a safe leads police to arrest a man with a sterling reputation. They figure he must be guilty because fingerprints don't lie.

However, "scientific detective" Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke proves that this isn't necessarily so. As you might expect in an 80-year-old story, the writing style and social customs described seem positively quaint. (In 1907, a gentleman did not presume to call a young lady by her first name until they are close to marriage.) However, the puzzle is as likely to interest modern readers as it did their great grandparents. Dr.

Thorndyke is one remarkable sleuth. Not every reissue is that old, of Tale Told by Comatose Woman a Return Trip course. For example, "Killed in the Ratings," by William L. DeAndrea (HarvestHBJ. $4.95) was originally published just eight years ago.

This is a tale for TV fans written by a man in love with the medium. The hero is Matthew Cobb, whose job for a major TV network is keeping em-barassing stories about network stars out of the papers. This case involves a plot to rig the ratings of a new show and the plotters include some very big guys indeed. Also among the "new" oldies: "Deadly Meeting by Robert Bernard (Harper and Row's Perennial Library, S3.9S). originally published in 1970.

This is a story about murder on a college campus. (Author Bernard, incidentally, is not to be confused with the better-known Robert Barnard, has who also written of murder in a campus setting.) The victim is the pompous chairman of the English department in a small New England University. Heaven knows, the faculty has good reason to dislike him, but none of them seems the type to drop poison in a person's drink. However, it develops that each of the profs has a previously "Extraordinary Means" By Donna Levin. Arbor House.

$17.95 296 pages. Hard cover. Reviewed by ELLEN GRAY Tpi his is the kind of book that's II 8ing ,0 naye people burning their Living Wills. Even people who love first novels told in the first person may at first have trouble with 24-year-old Melissa Silverstein, who is telling the story but whose mouth is not moving. Ditto her hands, feet and major brain functions.

Melissa is in a coma. a standard literary device, but it works, thanks to Melissa's discovery, very early on, that she can leave her body at will and flit all over town. As a result, Melissa spends less time in her hospital room than her doctor and is able to drop in on her assorted relatives, nearly all of whom have plans for her very, dubious future. Her mother, Elaina, somewhat an-noyingly nicknamed by her children "Mickey Mouse," wants to pull the-' plug. She's so sure this is what Melissa would have wanted that she's busy.