This Sweet Sickness

infobox Book |
name = This Sweet Sickness
title_orig =
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author = Patricia Highsmith
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Heinemann
release_date = 1961
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 240 pp (hardback edition)
isbn = ISBN 0-434-33508-8 (hardback edition)
preceded_by =
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"This Sweet Sickness" is a 1961 novel by Patricia Highsmith about a young man who is obsessed with his ex-lover. He is convinced they are going to get married, even though she is now married to someone else, something he considers a trivial obstacle. His insanity is only gradually revealed by the seemingly objective third person narrator. The action takes place in New England in the late 1950s. It was filmed as "Dites-lui que je l'aime" in 1977.

Plot summary

David Kelsey leads a double life. During the week he lives under his real name at Mrs. McCartney's boarding house and has a well-paid job as a scientist. During the weekends, while pretending to visit his invalid mother at a nursing home (his mother has in fact been dead for quite some time), he assumes the identity of William Neumeister and stays at an isolated house which he bought under that name. "Neumeister" sees himself as a success at whatever he does — he has even won the heart of Annabelle, his ex-girlfriend — whereas Kelsey considers himself a failure. In both his lives he is a recluse. He has bought and furnished his house for Annabelle, the love of his life, who in reality has never come to visit him. Every weekend he cooks dinner for two, with Annabelle present only in his imagination. One weekend two of his coworkers, Wes Carmichael and Effie Brennan secretly follow him. On this occasion they see him enter the house without realising that it is his own and without Kelsey noticing it.

Kelsey suffers under what he calls "the Situation": Annabelle marries another man, Gerald Delaney, and gives birth to a son. Kelsey is convinced that Annabelle has made a serious mistake, but he does not give up hope to get her in the end. He keeps writing her letters in which he insists that she leave her husband and marry him. Furious, Delaney comes to the boarding house to tell Kelsey to leave them alone, and is given directions by Effie as to where he might find him. Shortly afterwards Delaney shows up at Kelsey's house, where Kelsey kills him in the ensuing fight.

Kelsey calmly reports the incident at the nearest police station. The police have no reason to doubt what he tells them: that his name is Neumeister, a freelance journalist who frequently travels, that he did not know Delaney or any of his family, and that he only acted in self-defense on being attacked by a stranger. Of course Kelsey's "Situation" is much more complicated now: He is positive that no one must ever find out that Kelsey and Neumeister are the same person.

Consequently, Kelsey builds an astonishing web of lies, betrayal and denial. When doing so, he has to rely heavily on the people surrounding him not telling anyone about their suspicions. Effie, who is in (unrequited) love with Kelsey, promises him she will never tell anyone that Kelsey and Neumeister are one and the same. When Annabelle wants to meet Neumeister in person to ask him about the circumstances of her husband's death, he writes her a very sympathetic letter (signed Neumeister), which she accepts instead of a personal meeting. Kelsey also sells his house, quits his job, gets a new one nearer to where Annabelle lives, moves out of the boarding house and buys a new house, now in his real name.

He now insists on seeing Annabelle more often, and when she refuses, he discovers that she's now seeing a man called Grant Barber. Believing she's just making another mistake, he arrives at her apartment and insists she leave with him; when Grant steps in, David violently assaults him and is eventually thrown out of the building by Annabelle's neighbours,who just about render him unconscious. Matters deteriorate further when Effie and Wes arrive at his house for the weekend. After some heavy drinking and quarrelling, David suffers memory lapses, demanding Wes call him 'Bill' (as in William Neumeister). When Wes leaves, David goes upstairs and thinks he sees Annabelle lying in his bed; however, when he realises that its actually Effie, he suddenly flies into a blind rage and throws her against the wall, inadvertently breaking her neck. He leaves (unaware that he's killed her), and drives past Wes's car in the road. David stays at a motel for the night and, upon hearing about Effie's death the next morning, goes on the run, his mind rapidly degenerating into confusion and insanity.

By the time Wes discovers Effie's body and the police realises that Neumeister is just Kelsey's alter ego, the latter is already in New York City. He has a leisurely day out with the imaginary Annabelle, pretending to take her to the Museum of Modern Art, clothes shopping and dinner at a fancy restaurant. However, the facade breaks down when said restaurant's head waiter ponders over the name of David Kelsey; David runs away into the night, believing himself to be accompanied by Annabelle, and eventually arrives at the home of old school acquaintance Ed Greenhouse. Ed's wife sneaks out into the apartment block hallway and calls the police, and David eventually himself on the ledge outside their ninth floor window. Following desperate attempts by the police and fire crews to save his life, he eventually jumps upon seeing Annabelle standing below him...