Book #97: Robert Bloch's Psycho: Sanitarium by Chet Williamson

 

Robert Bloch's Psycho: Sanitarium

Chet Williamson

 Released: January 1st, 1990

[Blogger’s Note: A lot of life has happened the past few months.  Gonna try and hit the goal.  No guarantees though.]

My 40th book for 2025 was Chet Williamson's "Robert Bloch's Psycho: Sanitarium".  

The 4th novel in the Psycho series is a bit of an odd ball.  Despite the unusually long title, (likely because the author wanted to credit the original author) it reads decently.  

This book takes place between the original Psycho novel and Psycho II.  It focuses on Norman Bates time in the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.
At first, I wasn't sure I was going to like this one.  It started a bit in the slower end, with a lot of background information that feels extraneous at first, but about 100 pages in the book really starts getting good.

Norman Bates meets with valid focus each day was he attempts to team his psychotic state of mind from his actions in the original Psycho novel.  He is introduced to his long list twin brother Robert, who despite getting the opposite of Norman, harbors shared twin thoughts.  The doctors and nurses have questionable ethics and morals, which leads to murders popping up around the hospital.  Each one has a link to Norman, despite the impossibility of him being free to commit them.

As with the Robert Bloch novels, the are various twists and turns that change the story.  It gets better as you go.

Here is what I learned:
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• “To Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, and Richard Matheson, whose stories grabbed my imagination and never let go.”  Dedication from Chet Williamson.

• The novel takes place in October 1960.

• The State Hospital for the Criminally Insane was once a more humanitarian place known as the Ollinger Sanitarium.

• It closed over 40 years prior.

• Norman likes the food he is served at the sanitarium.

• Oley Crowe is a pastor at the First Baptist Holiness Church.

• Dr. Issac Goldberg is the superintendent of the facility.

• Dr. Goldberg enjoys opera music and Oreos.

• Dr Goldberg smokes cigars.

• Patient Ronald Miller has always wanted to kill someone.

• Ronald Miller used to collect “titty pictures” from National Geographic in his youth.

• Norman had a twin brother named Robert Newman.

• Ronald Miller has a reputation for sexually assaulting people in the State Hospital.

• Robert shares Norman’s urges to kill.

• Ronald likes the dark.

• Captain Banning became a Captain at age 35.

• Mother once crushed Norman’s doll in a wringer to teach him a lesson about putting his fingers close to it.

• Wagner was Hitler’s favorite composer.

• “We do not seem to judge.  We seek to observe, to appreciate the good.”

• Eleanor Lindstrom and Myron Gunn have trysts in the Hospital cellar.

• Senior Nurse Wyndham and Ray Wiseman receive temporary field promotions when Myron and Eleanor do not show for their shifts.

• Eleanor drives a green Buick Skylark.

• Myron drives a black Desoto Firestone.

• “I can envision the two of them getting in the car on impulse and driving to a motor lodge, leaving all else behind in the throes of passion, having sexual relations, and then, away from the facility in which they have previously shared all their time together, come to a joint realization-or illusion-that one cannot live without the other.  They then decide to leave together, run away for a brief time, or for forever, who knows? They simply get in the car and drive. Un-likely? Yes. Illogical? Yes. Unexpected? Of course. But passion and love make people do such things. So it is not impossible.”

• Ray once witnessed Myron and Eleanor in the act, but did not intervene, and kept it quiet.

• Dr. Goldberg considers all his records to be his children.

• “Being otherwise childless, these are my children.  I play them carefully, and just as carefully replace them in their liners and boxes when done.  Dust is the enemy of records Nurse Radcliffe.”

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Overall, this was a surprisingly good read.  It has enough suspense and intrigue to keep you going.  The reader just needs to get passed the first 100 pages.

Recommended

On to Book #98: Ferris Bueller's Day Off by Todd Strausser.