: The novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize .
The story is presented as a "found manuscript." Burnet frames the book with a prologue explaining how he received a series of notebooks in 2020 from a stranger. These notebooks tell the story of a young woman in 1965 London who is convinced that a charismatic, radical psychotherapist named drove her sister to suicide. Key Features
: Critics have described the plot as a cat-and-mouse game filled with dark humor and classic noir elements, where patient and doctor become inextricably confused.
Caso clínico (originally published as Case Study in 2021) is a dazzling, metafictional thriller by Scottish author Graeme Macrae Burnet . Set in the 1960s, it functions as a psychological puzzle that explores the fluid nature of identity, sanity, and the ethics of psychoanalysis.
: To uncover the truth, the protagonist adopts a false identity—"Rebecca Smyth"—and begins attending therapy sessions with Braithwaite. As the sessions progress, the lines between her real self and her fabricated persona begin to blur.
: Burnet intersperses the woman's notebooks with his own "biographical research" into the life of the fictional Braithwaite, creating a "book within a book" that challenges the reader to determine what is fact and what is fiction. Critical Reception
: The novel is deeply rooted in the historical context of the "anti-psychiatry" movement of the 60s, featuring Braithwaite as a fictional contemporary to real figures like R.D. Laing.
: It is widely praised by publications like El Mundo and La Vanguardia for its "mind-bending brilliance" and its exploration of the "splitting of the self".