Dreaming A Narcissist1

Over the years, I've received several letters from psychoanalysts remarking on the overlaps in the work we do. I'm sure many writers have received similar letters, because members of both professions routinely devote themselves to tracking and interpreting interior lives. Sometimes my correspondents single out my clear and ongoing interest in character as it changes (or doesn't change) over long periods of time. That preoccupation of mine is evident in my 2003 novel The Wife. While the book is told from the point of view of the title character, a woman in her 60s named Joan Castleman, she provides the reader with perhaps an even closer grained view of her husband, Joseph Castleman, a world-famous novelist, and, as it would happen, a world-class narcissist.

The novel opens as the Castlemans are on their way to Finland, where Joe will accept the Helsinki Prize for Literature, an award (invented by me) that is described as “one step down from the Nobel,” and which the couple has long hoped Joe would win. Joan recounts the beginning of their relationship—how they first met when she was his student in a writing class at Smith College in the 1950s—and how, over time, she put aside her own literary ambitions and became known as the supportive wife of a prominent writer.

Once various scenes and small details—all from Joan's point of view—began to accrue during the first draft, and once I had developed a good sense of who Joe was, I realized that what I had created was a narcissist, and a dedicated one at that, so I tried to deepen the portrayal with this quality in mind. The term narcissism has been bandied about so much in the culture in recent years that in general usage it's become uncoupled

from exact meaning, and instead is left blurry and vague, a kind of “I know it when I see it” term, à la J