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Trauma by Patrick McGrath

Trauma is Charlie Weir's specialty. He's a psychiatrist in New York City who counsels trauma victims, including war veterans. Charlie lives an isolated, emotionally distant life. He's haunted by the suicide of one patient, his ex-wife's brother, and it led to the unraveling of his marriage. He meets a new woman, Nora, but she suffers violent nightmares that hide her own traumatic past. When his mother dies and his brother hints at secrets about his new girlfriend, Charlie starts suffering his own nightmares. Being an expert on trauma, Charlie can see all the usual signs of his own life unraveling, but he also feels powerless to stop it. Patrick McGrath's novel has received mostly positive reviews with the Washington Post saying, "Beautifully crafted and paced, Trauma can be viewed as either a superb psychological thriller or as a masterly evocation of modern alienation and despair -- assuming, of course, there is any difference."