Dove in a Window
Jean Marie Haugen

Dove in A Window, a book recently published by Marvin Books and written by Jean Marie Haugen is a rare chance to enter a new dimension, namely the workings of the inner mind.

    Right from the start Haugen takes us to a place we have never been before by introducing us to the main character, Angela Hewson, a woman who has just had a serious car accident. But Angela is not your average 30-year-old single female.

   The reader's very first meeting with Angela is in the hospital where she is recuperating from the accident -- at least that's what she's been told. The accident itself occupies one of those missing pieces in Angela's memory.

   We learn that she works hard in the family's deli, the very place she discovered her father's body--murdered--six months earlier.

   Who would want to kill her father, she wondered. Did she? It bothered Angela that she had so many blank spaces in her memory and, as her mother repeatedly reminded her, Angela was seriously unstable. Was her car accident just a ploy for attention--or was she still despondent over her father's death, trying to kill herself?

   Well, no, not exactly. Angela is diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder by a psychiatrist and his surgeon colleague. As the personalities begin to reveal themselves, the reader is taken in to the various rooms of Angela's mind and can see events from many different perspectives. Each personality views the same events from a new angle.

   As the story unfolds, attempts to reintegrate Angela's various personalities fail because Angela's controlling Mother doesn't want the medical team interfering with her daughter's life. A struggle ensues over who should ultimately have custody of Angela or what should happen to her.

   The story is graphic and gritty, taking the reader on a roller coaster of emotions. This is a journey into how we all think and how we react to depression and dire circumstances. Beyond that, the struggle for reintegration is at times breathtaking, since readers will not be prepared for some of the surprises which Haugen has knitted into the personalities.

Dove in A Window is a page turner and hard to put down until all the mysteries of Angela's difficulties are finally reconciled.