SIREN'S DANCE: My Marriage to a Borderline: A Case Study

Walker's disturbing memoir follows the relationship between the author (a psychiatrist) and his wife, Michelle, from its tumultuous beginning in 1985 to their ambivalent last good-bye three years later. The subtitle "a case study" attempts to maintain a professional distance from this devastating relationship, but it's all too clear that the illness from which Walker's wife suffered came close to dragging him down with her. Walker is first smitten by Michelle when, as a medical student, he encounters her on rounds, where she is presented as a recent suicide attempt. He can't understand how such a beautiful, sexy young woman would want to kill herself and returns to interview her for a school presentation. Despite warnings from his teacher, friends and father, he falls deeply in love and is drawn into her world, only to emerge with great difficulty a year later. Walker, an outgoing, athletic, cheerful young man, relinquishes more and more of himself to Michelle and gradually becomes isolated, depressed, devious and even violent as he tries to cope with—and ultimately escape from—Michelle. Walker, who now treats teenage girls with borderline personality disorder, is not an expert writer. His dialogues often sound as if the speakers learned English as a second language. But this intimate narrative, showing how the best intentions of a naïve, compassionate young doctor can lead him straight to hell, will fascinate readers who've dealt with similar situations firsthand. The three appendixes provide welcome information about the definition, diagnosis and treatment of borderline personality disorder. (Sept.)

Forecast: Walker's book will attract therapists, families coping with mental illness and anyone interested in the sometimes destructive symbiosis between the mentally ill and those who care for them. Readers seeking a Girl, Interrupted–type story won't find it here, though, as Walker is, first and foremost, a psychiatrist, not a writer.