I read this hoping for some decent "dealing with gaslighters" tips. I requested it via interlibrary loan after one particular incident with my own personal gaslighter. I hadn't previously realized that the word "gaslighting" applied to that person's actions, but for some reason it suddenly clicked.

In her introduction, Sarkis asks that readers not succumb to the temptation to skip directly to whichever chapter seems most appropriate to their situation, and I'd have to agree. While Sarkis organizes the book into chapters that, for the most part, each deal with a particular situation (you're in an intimate relationship with the gaslighter, the gaslighter is in your workplace, the gaslighter is a politician, you're in a cult and being gaslit by everyone close to you, etc.), and those chapters often have advice that's only applicable in those situations, there are tidbits of advice throughout the entire book that could be more broadly useful.

I also want to mention that much of the advice specific to certain situations is also specific to US residents. Sarkis definitely wrote this book with US readers in mind. The laws and legal protections she mentions might have equivalents in other countries, but it's up to readers to look those up. That said, there's lots of other advice that would likely be helpful no matter where you live: creating physical and/or emotional distance between yourself and your gaslighter, documenting everything, suggested ways of responding to particular conversational traps and attempts to reel you in, etc.

Oddly, there was one chapter that I expected would be particularly US-centric that wasn't: the chapter on gaslighters in politics. Although Sarkis noted that there were "examples [of gaslighters] in our own country" (96), the only specific examples she mentioned were those in other countries, people like Nicolás Maduro and Kim Jong-un. Sarkis's introduction brought up the 2016 election and "fake news" but never actually named Trump or any of the politicians and White House staff members who made/continue to make his presidency possible. Perhaps this was a Da Capo Press editorial decision (fear of being sued?), or perhaps Sarkis decided to be vague on purpose.

At any rate, I could imagine the legal info included in the gaslighting spouse, gaslighting employer or coworker, and "divorcing a gaslighter, especially when there are children involved" sections to be particularly helpful to some people. They weren't very helpful to me, mostly because (thankfully) my own personal gaslighter isn't at a level where legal intervention is necessary. I have a feeling that, were Sarkis to categorize my gaslighter, she would say that person "exhibits gaslighting behaviors" (particularly when under stress) and is not a "true gaslighter."

One thing that really bugged me about the book is Sarkis's distinction between "true gaslighters" and those who exhibit gaslighting behavior. From Sarkis's perspective, true gaslighters are those who are incapable of experiencing real empathy. They either don't recognize what they're doing to those around them, or don't care. People who exhibit gaslighting behaviors may have been victims of gaslighters themselves, who picked up gaslighting behaviors as a form of self-defense. On the one hand, I could understand the need to distinguish between the two somehow. On the other hand, as someone who has struggled with my feelings about my own gaslighter, who I would generally describe as a nice person (no, really), the way Sarkis made "true gaslighters" a separate category was painful.

Whether someone is a "true gaslighter" or just someone "exhibiting gaslighting behavior" doesn't really matter to the person who is in the process of being gaslit. I don't know enough about my gaslighter's life to know if there are reasons why they do what they do, but even if there are, that doesn't excuse the harm that person does. The same goes for the moments when that person clearly feels bad about what they've done - those moments only matter if they lead to an effort at change and self-improvement.

Anyway, moving on. Sarkis's top piece of advice to all victims of gaslighters was to leave if possible. Unfortunately, that isn't always possible. In my case, it could be, but it would involve huge and expensive changes that currently seem out of proportion to the occasional gaslighting I deal with. Thankfully, Sarkis included lots of other useful advice that would work for those who can't or won't leave: keeping documentation (which I do, although not always as religiously as I should), avoiding being alone with your gaslighter, sticking to written communication when possible, creating emotional distance by mentally reframing your gaslighter as a particularly interesting specimen of gaslighter that you are studying, acting bored, blank, or confused when they try to stir up trouble, etc.

I also liked Sarkis's communication tips in her "What if I'm the gaslighter?" chapter, which I thought sounded like they'd be helpful in broader contexts, any situation where one might want to communicate with greater clarity and respect. In the final chapter, Sarkis went into detail on how to find a mental health professional, explanations of different counseling theories and forms of counseling (making sure to emphasize that there is no one "right" way - it all depends on what works for you), and a few things you can do on your own to improve your emotional health. I haven't looked into getting counseling before, so I appreciated her explanations.

The focus of this book was, at times, almost too broad. The chapters on gaslighting politicians and gaslighting cultists felt a bit out of place in what was largely a book about recognizing and dealing with gaslighters in one's day-to-day life. (Gaslighting cultists would be a daily problem for those trapped in cults, yes, but even Sarkis recognized that it would be an extraordinary achievement for someone trapped in a cult to somehow get hold of a copy of this book and not get caught reading it. I could see the book being therapeutic for someone after they'd gotten out, though.) And, like I said, I was unhappy with the way Sarkis distinguished between "true gaslighters" and people who practice gaslighting behaviors.

That said, there was a good deal of useful information here. I do wish it had been a bit less scattered, though. It'd be tough to track down a specific piece of advice unless it was directly related to a particular situation, like divorcing a gaslighter. There's an index, but that can only accomplish so much.

Extras:

The book includes a "Resources" section with lists of potentially useful URLs. They're separated out into categories, like "Employee and Employer Rights," "How Congress Voted," "Legal Services," etc. Unfortunately, none of the resources are annotated.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

So far, the "how to identify gaslighters" chapter is pretty good, with a few examples of behaviors that hadn't occurred to me as being features of gaslighters.

Because they owe someone money, Noriko's parents agree to consider an arranged marriage between her and Kazuhito Shito. Kazuhito is handsome, kind, and wealthy. The marriage's main drawback is that Noriko would be expected to move away from her small town and live with Kazuhito and multiple generations of his family in their home in Tokyo. It makes Noriko nervous, but Kazuhito is wonderful and everyone in his family seems so nice when she meets them. In the end, she agrees to the marriage.

Everything goes well, for a while. Nobody's personality suddenly changes - everyone is just as friendly as when she and Kazuhito first met. It does turn out that Kazuhito wasn't immediately forthcoming about his mentally handicapped younger brother and bedridden grandfather, which Noriko worries is a sign that she'll be roped into being their caretaker, but thankfully that isn't the case. Everyone in the family supports each other, and disagreements are resolved by the family matriarch, Great Granny Ei.

Two months after her marriage to Kazuhito, Noriko's peaceful life is interrupted by the arrival of a man from the nearby area. It turns out that the Shitos are his landlords and he hopes to get permission to pay his rent a little late this month. He also wants to tell Noriko something important but is interrupted by one of the Shitos before he gets the opportunity. After that, Noriko visits her parents for the first time since her marriage and comes back to discover that the man and his entire family died in a fire. It's arson, a suspected suicide, but Noriko begins to wonder. What had the man wanted to tell her? Did the Shitos murder him to prevent him from talking?

I wanted to read this for several reasons: the cover art was intriguingly cryptic (after finishing the book, I still have no idea what anything on the cover except maybe the little line is supposed to be), the author is a woman (it seems like most Japanese fiction translated into English is by male authors), and I had read several reviews that referred to this as Japanese gothic fiction.

I really enjoyed the bulk of this book. The mystery was intriguing, and the slightly off atmosphere was wonderful. When Noriko was at the Shito family home, it was easy to forget that this was a contemporary-set novel - it made the house ever-so-slightly claustrophobic, which intensified as Noriko's suspicions began to pile up. Were the Shitos really as pleasant as they seemed? What was the real purpose of Great Granny's private meetings with members of the nearby community? Was the relationship between Kazuhito's sister and mentally handicapped brother really as incestuously close as it seemed?

Unfortunately, the mystery was somewhat ruined by Nonami telegraphing important details too soon. I spent much of the book thinking "Okay, Noriko and I both suspect that __ is going on, but since that explanation is pretty obvious, surely the truth must be something else?" Except it wasn't. There were a couple surprises, but I think the ending would have had much more of an impact if the things Noriko spent most of the book suspecting had been more different from what was actually going on.

I did find the process by which the Shitos made Noriko one of them unsettling and disturbing (content warning for on-page gaslighting and abuse, particularly emotional and mental), but that, too, didn't have as much impact on me as it should have had, not even after the fates of a couple other characters were revealed. I found important aspects of the ending to be very difficult to swallow. The more people who know a secret, the harder it should be to keep, and the Shito family secrets had reached a point where the police should have heard something and gotten involved. And yes, the family was rich, but surely they couldn't afford to bribe everyone?

This book had a lot of promise and could have been amazing, but unfortunately it fell a little flat for me in the end. Still, I enjoyed the bulk of it and don't regret reading it. I intend to try another one of the author's works at some point in the future.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

By: Galt Niederhoffer 

ISBN:  9781250085290

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Publication Date: 11/21/2017 

Format: Hardcover 

My Rating: 5 Stars  (ARC)

From the author of The Romantics, the Indie director-producer Galt Niederhoffer’s slow-burning highly anticipated and riveting high-stakes psychological domestic thriller, POISON centers around a seemingly perfect marriage that turns deadly, when a journalist, Cass Connor begins to suspect her dazzling architect husband, Ryan is trying to kill her.

C H I L L I N G ! 

Similar to Gaslight, the popular noir film; and even more shocking— inspired by the author’s own personal nightmare (very intriguing). In 2016 a court battle over custody and accusing her own high-profile ex-boyfriend of poisoning her with arsenic, making headlines. 

Presently, POISON has been optioned for a scripted TV series by Ben Silverman’s Propagate Content... Hollywood Reporter

This is one I am dying to see and look forward to the cast of stars! Predict will be hotter than Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train. 

There is a lot to discuss further here: 

In addition, the novel addresses some highly-charged topicsripped from today’s headlines. More importantly how violence, threats, and patterns are viewed. 

However, by coming forward with knowledge of a crime, women are scrutinized. They need protection, yet get thrown to the wolves. Brutalized, while being ravaged by violence. In turn, the attacker is rewarded. 

A broken legal system. 

Victims are made to appear suicidal, paranoid, delusional, jealous, mentally ill, a danger to herself, her children, or simply revengeful. A simple reporting of a crime, and conspiracy to commit murder. However, the tables are turned. 

A hot button question in today’s world and decades past. How many women must report a crime before the crime is believed? 

“Victims have two options: to be believed or dismissed. Deemed credible or crazy. A credible or unreliable witness.”

“An outraged victim, wrongly accused, dismissed, disgraced, ripped from her children. A woman, charged and criminalized, tried without due process. No burden of proof. An innocent, a victim sentenced for reporting a crime. All of this filtered through a feminist lens. But most of all, it the story of every woman’s fight for survival, a mother on a quest for her children.”

A tactic to destroy the credibility of his victim and witness. Obscure his crime by attacking the victim. 

Cassandra (Cass) and Ryan have three children (two from Cass’s former relationship). The family of five relocate cross-country from Brooklyn to a Seattle suburb, Madrona. Married three years. She is a journalist with a strong journalist instinct. 

Ryan, a powerful, sexy, charming, architect. A so-called loving father and husband turn into a monster. Her father also suffered from narcissism. Her mother did not care for Ryan. 

The Connor family. All goes along smoothly. The daily rotation of domestic life rolls on, as with any perfect machine, until a circuit breaks and the machine ceases to function.

Had Cass overlooked her husband’s troubled past? His sexual appetite and preferences. Eaten alive by the lies her husband? 

Cass, age 40 becomes sick after confronting her husband of cheating and his constant travel. He loves to turn the tables on any argument. She was married twice before (one deceased and divorced). 

At the University of Washington, she has a classroom of aspiring journalists and students. She happens to be discussing “Reporting on the Female Witness.” Destroying the female witness. 

The oldest defense is “she is crazy.” They quote The Crosby case. They blame the victim. A familiar tactic in every rape case. Misogyny. 

However, little does Cass know soon she will have the first-hand experience. The family appeared perfect on the outside. Quite different on the inside. Ryan has chosen the perfect crime and the perfect weapon.

When conducting an internet search, the symptoms appear to be poisoning. Heavily intoxicated against her will. Drugged without her knowledge. Who will believe her? In the meantime, Ryan is having an affair. He becomes more sinister and violent. There are more clues. Poison in her system. A pattern of abuse. 

Poison used with intent to harm. Trapped in a cage of her husband’s design that extends far beyond anything she could have imagined.

She is being poisoned. Nausea, dizziness, vomiting, pain, bleeding, hair falling out. Similar to patients who are taking chemo. Who will believe her? Toxins in the home, sheets, food, and other sinister acts. They were joint tenants on the deed to the house which means if she dies, he gets the house. Of course, if he can prove her insane or suicidal, he gets custody. 

“Arsenic is unique in its dualistic nature, its capacity both to heal, to act as a cure or a killer. In small does, it has a medicinal effect. At higher levels, it transforms from helpful to fatal. It is an example, perhaps more than any other substance, of the inextricable relationship between medicine and poison, endowed with both the power to revive and to destroy, to giveth and to taketh. Like two sides of the same coin, or the cruelest lover.”

. . . “The strangest thing about arsenic is the way it flips from medicinal to toxic. It is Dr. Jekyll, then Mr. Hyde. A personality split between its capacity to do good and evil. . . from an angel of life to an angel of death in a hot minute.” 

Much like her husband. 

A house once her haven is now her very own crime scene. She has one friend, Nora a real estate broker. They met when she sold them their home. She needs help.

In order, to protect a child, Cass as to pull off a seamless bait and switch. When the legal, health, or law enforcement system does not protect, it forces a woman to take matters into her own hands.

Snow him, and seduce him. He does not love her. He wants to kill her. She needs more evidence. She has to risk danger in order to protect herself and her children. A man who has the power to weaken her defenses. 

HE is her poison. A bed that promised restoration is now a torture chamber. A meal that offered sustenance is now a possible vessel for poison. 

The only question is the dose at which he is fatal. Her lover. Her tormentor. She must overcome conflicted goals; the desire to run from him, to protect herself from his danger, the impulse to run to him, collapse into his arms and the need to destroy him.

She has to catch him in the act of her own murder. Proof of the crime. Witnesses. Physical evidence. 

Will he stop? Can she trust him? A war in which losing is death and winning is safety for her children. A trusting marriage finds new stakes on the age-old issue: happiness or homicide, confidant or killer?

A fake (fraud) nanny, Marley. A neighbor, Aaron who is not as he appears. The source of the toxin. A family who turns against her. Betrays her. A husband who attempts to kill her. A system which does not support her. A fatal attack on her own credibility. A murderer supported. 

Insanity? The motive for revenge. A wife reported her husband’s crime, but the wife, not the husband was sentenced. 

Four ways to discredit a woman: Delusion. Fabrication. Inculpation. Criminalization. Four failproof ways to destroy the testimony of a victim— when a victim is a woman.

The contradictions. Hatred and love. Fear and desire. Loathing and yearning. Twist the facts. Shift the blame. 

A two-year-old son. Still breastfeeding less than two months ago. Now both parents fighting for custody. Two other children sent to live with grandparents. 

The terror of being the object of her husband’s hatred. Threats to kill her. A crime with no evidence other than hearsay. Time is not on her side. There is only one option: she must use her own devices to protect herself and her children. 

She faces a throng of opposing forces on this subject: rage compels her to hurt him back, to deprive him of the thing he wants most, their most precious shared possession, and common sense tells her is not in his right mind, that he is not competent now to be around children. 

And yet her pure and weakened heart wants no revenge, no malice, and like some old broken toy, years to make him happy. 

Why does a woman stay a day with a man she knows is capable of violence? #WhyIStayed

To prove a crime, not unlike rape, a crime with no witnesses, the only proof that it did occur, the victim’s bruises, trauma, terror, and, if she’s lucky, her attacker’s semen. An attacker warps an act of love into an act of violence. Except here the semen is poison. 

No need for a smoking gun. Cass swallowed the bullet. Will Cass find the strength to protect her children and wage this war?

“Killers forget that when they fail, they train their insurrection.”

Liars like to brag. They love attention. Love-hate relationships. . . . “Liars are storytellers first and foremost, and a story without an audience is a tree falling in a forest.”

The author’s writing is precise and flawless. Due to the premise (the author’s first-hand experience), the details are raw and full of passion and emotion. 

Some reviewers state there is more telling and narrative than dialogue. Being that this book could have been written as a memoir or non-fiction (however, due to any whistleblower story, that cannot be done) legally; and must be fictional, while paralleling close to the real truth.

In doing so, possibly the author is very close to the topic at hand, so the humor and additional fictional dialogue are not present i.e. husband’s POV. 

Say for example, books such as: Best Day Ever (Kaira Ruba) – also a psychopathic husband poisoning his wife , and Behind Closed Doors (B.A. Paris), Emma In the Night (Wendy Walker), and Big Little Lies (Liane Moriarty) there comes more banter and dialogue between the two and crosses over to the sarcastic witty side, or includes secondary sideline stories and other characters. 

Whereas, in POISON (a more serious tone). More of a "telling" from a woman’s point of view how a perfect life unraveling by someone close to her, and at the same time there is no support when attempting to attain justice from the system. In-depth feelings and emotions. Broken trust. A story for women, about women. The author shines here. 

Cass' role as wife, and mother is the focus. This is a strong and intelligent woman. How it all unravels from perfection to hell. Demonstrates this happens to women from all social classes. There is not a husband’s POV. Whereas other psychological thrillers may go into more detail of the deranged husband and his background. (however, highlighted here).

Thought-provoking! Why so many women do not come forward until there are others to support the actions, lest to be shut down and demoralized. An ideal book club choice. 

In our society today, this rings true. Similar to rape or domestic abuse. There is a twisting of the truth by the opposition and therefore discourages women from coming forward. The proof. 

You have to be almost dead or the killer caught in the act. The witness? In this case, there is another burden of truth, who is actually putting the toxins in the food, which further complicates the motive. 

Like so many women (and whistleblowers), you are forced to stay in the relationship or job, in order to attain more evidence or proof due to the way our court system is unfairly designed. 

POISON is realistic, gripping, and haunting. A cautionary tale. (The book reminded me of my psycho-ex husband and our nightmare trip to Bermuda). Ironic, it was Bermuda here as well. 

"I wanted to write a book where the suspense is fueled both by the peril of the protagonist and by the judgment of the community," Niederhoffer said. "It's a story about a whistleblower, and the ways a community can discount, dismiss and demonize — shoot the messenger — when she reports violence before believing a woman's word."

Masterfully done! Great passages, and superb writing; bookmarked many pages. Loved: The friend, the drying cleaning clue, the second phone ("Robinhood" for jilted housewives) – an edgy and crafty twist.

Highly Recommend for those who enjoy intelligent and entertaining domestic suspense focused on women. For fans of Big Little Lies, would love to see Nichole Kidman or Shailene Woodley cast as Cass, and evil, Alexander Skarsgård as Ryan. Oh, and please sneak in Iain Armitage as one of the children. 

JDCMustReadBooks

A special thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advanced reading copy. 

Also purchased the audiobook, narrated by Hillary Huber for an entertaining and engrossing performance. 

Niederhoffer is the author of four novels, including Taxonomy of Barnacles and The Romantics, which she adapted and directed for the screen with Katie Holmes and Anna Paquin starring. She has produced more than 20 films, including Infinitely Polar Bear, Robot and Frank and the Oscar-nominated The Kids Are All Right.

Silverman, former co-chairman of NBC Entertainment from 2007-2009 and Universal Media Studios, is an Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning show creator and executive producer of The Office, Jane the Virgin, Ugly Betty and The Tudors.Silverman's Propagate Content is currently in production on a number of series including The CW’s Charmed and Apple's first TV show, Planet of the Apps.