The Portrait [Hardcover]

Charles Atkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1998

Soho artist Chad Green is having a bad week. He has been home from the hospital only three days when his dog is shot, his loft is ransacked, and his psychiatrist is murdered. His manic depression is heating up -- of course, he did stop his medication -- and the boundaries between reality and psychosis have started to blur. And, of course, the police are all too ready to look at Chad and see a murderer in his madness.

On the plus side, his agent Pamela couldn't be happier. His paintings are selling like cups of coffee at a Starbucks and the publicity that swirls around the young artist is propelling him to breakthrough heights.

But Chad is running out of time. Hunted by a killer who shares secrets from his past, pursued by the police and hounded by his own insanity, he struggles to make sense of the chaos that has overrun his life. He has no way out, and to find the answers he must risk all and plunge into a world of total madness.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

What do you do if you suffer from manic depression with paranoid tendencies, have just been released from the bin and badly need to take your medsAbut lithium interferes with your ability to paint and you're a N.Y.C. artist with an opening... tonight? This is just a hint of the urgency that fuels Atkins's slick, assured debut. If you're 35-year-old Chadwick Greene, in and out of hospitals for the last 18 years, you skip your meds, paint a portrait of the shrink who pissed you off, open your show to rousing success, sell everything in itAincluding the shrink portraitAonly to discover that the psychiatrist has been murdered and that you're the prime suspect. When Chad's apartment is broken into, his artwork stolen and his dog shot, Chad's paranoia is provoked: it becomes clear that someone wants him dead or behind bars in order to drive up the price of his paintings. Does Chad's agent really care about him or does she have the most to gainAin 25% commissionsAfrom his death? Does the female detective assigned to his case want to date him or fry him for murder? What about his distant parents, his justifiably angry ex-wife, his new lawyer, his first shrink, his colleagues, his students? Are they what they seem or are they conspiring against him? Chad's waking nightmare neatly balances surreal surfaces with paranoid reality as the novel whips towards its satisfying conclusion and the reader is reminded, yet again, that even paranoids have enemies.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Painter Chad Green's most recent bout with manic depression leaves him glad to be released from the psych ward in time for the opening of his new show, but the horrors that await him almost make the locked ward look good in comparison. His apartment is ransacked, his dog shot, and his psychiatrist is murdered on the night of the show. At it, as it happens, a mysterious stranger buys Green's portrait of the psychiatrist and insists on immediately removing it. The show sells out, but Green can't celebrate. He is temporarily homeless and without other clothes, and his dog can't shake the effects of anesthesia. And Green isn't taking his meds. The lines between reality and psychosis blur for him, the voices in his head start up, and his illness blends with his sleuthing into the murder, threatening to drag him into a past that terrifies him. Great pacing and a riveting point of view--through the eyes of a creative psychotic, after all--make us hope psychiatrist Atkins will soon give us more. Whitney Scott

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312186525
• ISBN-13: 978-0312186524
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,455,049 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Charles Atkins is a board-certified psychiatrist and author. His mysteries and thrillers explore complex psychological subjects and the darker side of human nature. His non-fiction books on Bipolar Disorder and Alzheimer's are practical resources for families and mental-health consumers. In addition to books, Dr. Atkins has published hundreds of short stories, essays and columns in a wide variety of newspapers, magazines and journals. He has served as a consultant to the Reader's Digest Medical Breakthrough series and is on the clinical faculty at Yale University School of Medicine.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A psychological thriller written by a psychiatrist, November 5, 1999

By 

Larry Robinson ([e-mail]) (Gurnee, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Portrait (Hardcover)

An excellent first novel. Great character development on the main character. I learned to empathize with a manic depressive with psychotic tendencies. It's combined with a can't-put-it-down plot. The ending was a little weak, but I look for his next book. My regret is that I'm only the 2nd reviewer. More should be enjoying this one.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A riveting and fast-paced read. I couldn't put it down., October 29, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Portrait (Hardcover)

Dr. Atkins has a unique and insightful way of getting inside the head of a person with manic depression. That he used a murder mystery as the vehicle makes it all the more accessible. I loved it.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mumbo Jumbo and a Little Psycho, July 25, 2003

By 

Kris (Oxnard, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Portrait (Hardcover)

Charles Atkins gives readers a good tour of the psychiatric terrain, how psychiatrists and patients interact, about the "meds," et cetera.

But beyond this, you don't find much of interest here. New York scenery maybe, if you "love New York."

Maybe you identify with artistic genius, knowing that it could also cause what society defines as mental disease. The hero of this book is that way: Give in to the mania because you have a genius for painting fine pictures.

But the most interesting character, to me, was Allen Broadhurst, the sociopath or psychopath who ends up with a big bruise on his skull: If Mr. (whoops, sorry, Doctor) Atkins had included more of this nut case, he might have sold more books. He would have had his own version of Freddy Krueger and the other homicidal maniacs that the public today seems to love so much.

Maybe he has to be credited with holding on to his (psychiatric) integrity, by not giving in to the urge to highlight Allen Broadhurst.

This makes for a slow book. Readable, but slow. Diximus.