ilse nusbaum

In this dark and gripping psychological tale, Ophelia, a woman whose identity was fractured into five separate personalities by her fathers satanic rituals, seeks love, justice and unification.

The road to hell is paved with gold, an illusion of the setting sun. The month is October. The year is 1946. The road is in Michigan, north of Detroit. The novel opens with the birth of the fourth alternate personality of a tormented child. Identity dissociation is the minds defense against relentless childhood abuse. Multiple Personality Disorder is the extreme result.

When the third alter, too frightened to cope, flees into temporary amnesia, the fourth girl emerges. The first sound she hears is a mans voice. He calls her Faith but she isnt Faith. Faith is the name of the first girl. She is Ophelia, the novels narrator. Her journey through life begins as the unwilling witness to murder. Her father is the murderer. She falls into a state of oblivion, a black hole of the mind.

The next time Ophelia opens her eyes she is inside a house filled with art and music and an aura of evil. The idyllic setting, the shores of a small lake north of Detroit, conceals a sinister reality. On these shores and in nearby woods, gods and demons compete for human souls. Good and evil, free will and fate, fidelity and fanaticism, sacred oaths and prophecies determine the outcome.

Ophelias mother is an artist. Her father, Max Mahler, is a brilliant, handsome, charismatic physician. He is also the prophet of a satanic cult, its god the master of the moon. He spins a web of myths and lies and fantasies to lure disciples. His daughter is the victim of sadistic rituals performed to appease the demons lust. Fragmentation is her minds defense. The alters survive by sharing the suffering. In this complex novel, nothing is what it first seems to be.

Ophelias first days in a hell of her fathers creation are a jumble of confused activity. Sometimes she observes a red-haired girl who looks like her, an alter. Sometimes she takes her place. The five alters have separate memories, talents and identities.

The descriptions of the bizarre rituals are disturbing, graphic and explicit. They leave no doubt that the girl whose identity splinters is smart and brave. Fragmentation is not an act of cowardice.

Ophelia soon becomes the dominant personality. At nineteen, she plots her escape with courage and cunning. She leaves, taking her infant daughter with her. Max lets her go. He knows shell return on a predetermined date.

The story picks up 25 years later. Ophelia is a mother, a teacher of philosophy, and an artist who has found love, but she hasnt truly escaped. Her father has located her. Lured by the offer of her mothers art, she returns, her pagan faith intact.

She is the princess in the tower who has to save herself in order to save others. When her father and half-brother snatch her young granddaughter, she stands in their way. Her courage when she faces two armed men grants the unity she both craves and fears, her gods gift to her. Her fathers vengeful god takes what belongs to him in death and conflagration.

Despite dark psychological undertones and pervasive religious satire,the novel is in essence a romance. The hero is noble. The heroine is beautiful, smart, and brave. Blindspot reads like a myth, a disturbing fantasy. The specific cult is fictional, but horrific acts in the name of religion are not.

Memory is the key to identity. When identity is fractured, a question arises. Is the woman who survives parental molestation a reliable narrator, or does her road to hell begin with a single act of intolerable violence and end in a nightmare that unfolds in her mind?