Psycho (novel)

Psycho
First edition cover
Author(s)	Robert Bloch
Cover artist	Tony Palladino
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror Thriller
Publisher	Simon & Schuster
Publication date	1959
Media type	Print (Hardback and Paperback)
ISBN	NA
Followed by	Psycho II

Psycho (1959) is a suspense novel by Robert Bloch. It was adapted into Alfred Hitchcock's seminal 1960 film of the same name.

Plot

Norman Bates is a middle-aged bachelor who is dominated by his mother, a mean-tempered, puritanical old woman who forbids him to have a life away from her. They run a small motel together in Fairvale, California, but business has floundered ever since the state moved the highway. In the middle of a heated argument between them, a customer arrives, a young woman named Mary Crane, who, unbeknownst to Bates, is on the run after stealing $40,000 from her boss; she stole the money so she and her boyfriend, Sam Loomis, could afford to get married. Bates shyly asks her to have dinner with him, which sends his mother into a rage; she screams, "I'll kill the bitch!", which Mary overhears.

During dinner, Mary gently suggests that Bates put his mother in a mental institution, but he vehemently denies that there is anything wrong with her. Mary says goodnight and returns to her cabin, resolving to return the money and face the consequences so she won't end up like Bates, stuck in a "private trap". Moments later, however, a figure resembling an old woman surprises her in the shower with a butcher knife, and beheads her.

Bates, who had passed out drunk after dinner, awakes to find Mary's corpse, and is instantly convinced his mother is the murderer. He briefly considers letting her go to prison, but changes his mind after having a nightmare in which she sinks in quicksand, only to turn into him as she goes under. His mother comes to comfort him, and he decides to dispose of the body and go on with life as usual.

Meanwhile, Sam meets with Mary's sister, Lila, who tells him of Mary's disappearance. They meet with Milton Arbogast, a private investigator hired by Mary's boss to retrieve the money, and agree to wait for him as he goes to search for her. He eventually meets up with Bates, who says that Mary had left after one night; when Arbogast asks to talk with his mother, Bates refuses. This arouses Arbogast's suspicion, and he calls Lila and tells her that he is going to try to talk to Mrs. Bates. When he enters the house, the same mysterious figure who killed Mary ambushes him and stabs him to death.

Sam and Lila go to Fairvale to look for Arbogast, and meet with the town sheriff, who tells them that Mrs. Bates has been dead for years, having poisoned herself and her lover, Joe Considine. The young Norman Bates had apparently found them together, and briefly had to be put in a mental institution. Sam and Lila go the motel to investigate; Sam distracts Bates while Lila goes up to the house. During a conversation with Sam, Bates says that his mother had only pretended to be dead, and had communicated with him while he was in the institution. Puzzled, Sam lowers his guard just long enough for Bates to knock him unconscious. At the house, Lila finds a seated figure she thinks is Mrs. Bates, and calls to her; to her horror, she discovers that the figure is a mummified corpse. Just then, another figure rushes toward her with a knife — Norman Bates, dressed in his mother's clothes. Sam subdues him before he can harm Lila, and Bates is arrested.

At the police station, Sam talks to a psychiatrist who had examined Bates, and learns that, years before, Bates had murdered his mother and her lover. Bates and his mother had lived together in a state of total codependence ever since his father died, and she had preached to him that sex was sinful and that all women — except herself — were whores. When she took a lover, Bates went over the edge with jealousy and poisoned them both. To suppress the guilt of matricide, he developed a split personality in which his mother became an alternate self, which abused and dominated him as Mrs. Bates had done in life. He stole her corpse and preserved it and, whenever the illusion was threatened, would dress in her clothes and speak to himself in her voice. The "Mother" personality killed Mary because "she" was jealous of Norman feeling affection for another woman.

Bates is found insane, and put in a mental institution for life. Days later, the "Mother" personality completely takes over Bates' mind; he literally becomes his mother.

Allusions

In November 1957 — two years before Psycho was first published — Ed Gein was arrested in his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin for the murders of two women. When police searched his home, they found furniture, silverware, and even clothing made of human skin and body parts. Psychiatrists examining him theorized that he was trying to make a "woman suit" to wear so he could pretend to be his dead mother, whom neighbors described as a puritan who dominated her son.

At the time of Gein's arrest, Bloch was living 35 miles (56 km) away from Plainfield in Weyauwega. Familiar with the Gein case but not the specific details, Bloch began writing with "the notion that the man next door may be a monster unsuspected even in the gossip-ridden microcosm of small-town life." Bloch was surprised years later when he "discovered how closely the imaginary character I'd created resembled the real Ed Gein both in overt act and apparent motivation."

Sequels

Main articles: Psycho II (novel) and Psycho House

Bloch wrote two sequels, Psycho II and Psycho House. Neither were related to the film sequels. In the novel Psycho II, Bates escapes the asylum disguised as a nun and makes his way to Hollywood. Universal Pictures allegedly did not want to film it because of its social commentary on splatter films. In the novel Psycho House, murders begin again when the Bates Motel is reopened as a tourist attraction.

Adaptations

Film

Main articles: Psycho (film), Psycho II (film), Psycho III, Psycho IV: The Beginning, and Psycho (1998 film)

Bates Motel Set at Universal Studios, Hollywood, California

Bloch's novel was adapted in 1960 into the feature film by director Alfred Hitchcock. It was written by Joseph Stefano and starred Anthony Perkins as Bates and Janet Leigh in an Academy Award-nominated performance as Marion Crane (changed from "Mary" for the film, as there was a Mary Crane in Phoenix at that time). Hitchcock helped devise a promotional and marketing scheme for his film that insisted that critics would not get advance screenings, and that no one would be admitted into the theater after the film began. The promotional scheme also exhorted audiences not to reveal the twist ending. Twenty-three years after the release of Hitchcock's film and three years after the director's death came the first of three sequels, all featuring Perkins.

After Psycho III there was also a failed television pilot between named Bates Motel, in which Bates briefly appears played by another actor. It is not in continuity with the final sequel Psycho IV: The Beginning. Gus Van Sant directed a 1998 remake of the original film in which virtually every camera angle and line of dialogue was duplicated from the original. It starred Vince Vaughn as Bates and Anne Heche as Marion Crane. It was reviled by critics and performed poorly at the box office.

The Hitchcock version of the film is rated number 1 on the American Film Institute's list of one hundred most thrilling films.