Weekly Reader: The Patchwork Prince: Stumbling Stoned by Andre Van Wyck; Bizarre and Intriguing Journey Into The Mind of An Amnesiac Mentally Ill Patient

 

Weekly Reader: The Patchwork Prince: Stumbling Stoned by Andre Van Wyck; Bizarre and Intriguing Journey Into The Mind of An Amnesiac Mentally Ill Patient

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: In the book and movie to Shutter Island, former psychiatrist turned escaped patient, Rachel Solando explains to U.S. Marshal, Teddy Daniels, the difficulties that someone who is severely mentally ill has in making people believe them, even when they are telling the truth . "Once you are declared insane, then every thing you do is considered part of that insanity," she says. "Reasonable protests become denial. Valid fears become paranoia. Survival instincts become defense mechanisms." Because of this dilemma, it is sometimes hard to get inside the mind of a mentally ill person, making the one on the outside wonder if they are telling the truth or are caught up in their delusions.

That problem is especially evident when one is reading a book narrated by someone who has such an illness. The plot is often intentionally confusing and quite bizarre, so the Reader can't be certain if what they are reading is real or not. Is the person hallucinating this whole episode? Is it really happening? What drives the character to do such things? Do their motives and methods make any sense? Even if they are suffering from delusions, is there some truth to what the character is experiencing on a thematic level? 

Andre Van Wyck's novel, The Patchwork Prince: Stumbling Stoned is such a book. It is an intriguing book with a fascinating premise and even more fascinating narrator. 

Jean Dupont has been a patient in a French psychiatric hospital for the past four years. He has no memories of his life outside the hospital. All he knows is the daily routines of bathing, eating insitutional food, attending therapy sessions, and being given drugs to numb his system. 

Dupont is a complete blank slate. He does not know anything about his past, his job, his family or even if he has a family. He doesn't even know his real name. ("Jean Dupont" is the French equivalent of "John Doe.") That's what makes Dupont a fascinating narrator. He has so many questions and his total amnesia is a barrier to him finding the answers. 

What Dupont discovers throughout the course of the book is a search for his identity that piles one weird situation after another to the point where the Reader isn't sure what is real and what is in Dupont's mind. 

The first step in this odd trip is Dupont's discovery of his psychiatrist and an unknown man in the closet of his room. His psychiatrist is tied up, but alive which is more than can be said about the man. He is lying dead in a pool of blood and has completely black eyes, no pupils, or irises just pure blackness. Dupont can't remember how they got in that condition.

Well this horror show is more than enough reason for Dupont to check out of the hospital. He escapes through several missteps and a vague attempt at taking a hostage but eventually he escapes from the hospital. Eventually, his mad escape leads Dupont right in the path of mobsters, human traffickers, and dangerous assasins. If that wasn't bad enough, things take an even more bizarre turn when Dupont encounters evil sorcerors, a curvaceous witch, and sinister creatures called darklings. It's enough for Dupont (and the Reader) to wonder, "Just WTF is going on?"

Stumbling Stoned does just what the title suggests. It stumbles from plot point to plot point as the book gets progressively weirder. The storyline runs wild as Dupont leaps from one bizarre situation to another and is able to get through them. He mostly uses his abilities that he never had before like super strength, a strong street smart knowledge, and survival instinct that would come from working constantly with underworld figures. 

Many of Dupont's situations often lead to further complications. For example, he rescues, Natalie, a young woman from a human trafficking ring only to discover, oops, her father is the head of the French criminal underworld. Dupont then becomes caught in the middle of a war between crime families with Natalie and, by proxy, himself bounced around as hostages between various characters. 

We also learn some possibilities towards his identity. He drops hints of various pop culture touchstones but forgets where he knew them. (Once he mentions J.K. Rowling's name but then a few paragraphs later says that he doesn't know who "he" is.) His slang terms like "candy floss" for cotton candy suggests that he is an Englishman, but speaks and understands French fluently suggesting that he has lived in France for a long time. (Further compounding the confusion is that French children often learn British English, so he could be a native Frenchman who is familiar with English idioms and expressions.) 

We never learn the full story to his identity but are dropped hints. He hires a private investigator to learn about who he is, but due to unfortunate complications never finds out anything useful from the investigator before he finds him murdered. Characters taunt with him two potential scenarios which purposely contradict each other, so he is unaware if they are telling the truth or lying. After all if someone has no memories and no identity, how easy it for other people to manipulate him into becoming the person that they want him to become?

Once the plot hits supernatural overtones, it loses all coherence and that may possibly be the point. To his credit, Dupont is genre savvy enough to question reality himself. He considers whether his escape from the hospital is real or a hallucination. After all, he reasons no one in reality can possibly push a moving car, or survive a jump from a high rise, or possibly rip a man apart with his bare hands. There are moments when Dupont is knocked out and the Reader expects him to wake up back in the hospital and the experience proves to all be a hallucination. (Considering all that he goes through, there are probably times when Dupont wishes that would happen.)

Once Dupont encounters an immortal sorceror posing as CEO and a witch acting as his Executive Administration Assistant and then ends up in a graveyard having conversations with a resurrected corpse and a talking cat, the Reader is left with two options: Search for signs of a coherent plot and get more frustrated when they can't find one or just sit back and enjoy the ride. Luckily, Van Wyck makes it easy to enjoy the trajectory that the book takes us on. We can enjoy the weirdness even if we don't have all the answers. In fact the questions and weirdness are what makes the trip surprisingly enjoyable.

Unlike say Eddie Smyth's Revenge of the Stoned Rats which tries to be a family drama and a bizarre hallucinatory journey and doesn't succeed at either.

The Patchwork Prince: Stumbling Stoned just lets go of any semblance of reality and in some ways that's a comfort to the Reader. Instead of expecting the book to make sense, the Reader can take knowledge that it never did and doesn't have to. It gets to the point where any answer would ruin the weirdness of the rest of the book.

The Patchwork Prince: Stumbling Stoned is a strange journey that goes off into some bizarre places. But it is one that is addictive, despite or rather because of the insanity that surrounds that journey.