Now, the solution to that darkest of all Christie mysteries may be at hand, according to biographer Andrew Norman (Agatha Christie: The Finished Portrait), who believes that he is the first to discern the secret behind this peculiar case.
According to today’s Observer, Norman believes the novelist vanished while in a fugue state, or, more technically, a psychogenic trance--a rare, deluded condition brought on by trauma or depression. This may have been the same thing that led the writer-actor Stephen Fry to travel to Bruges in 1995 without leaving word with his friends or family.
“This kind of fugue state, which is much better understood these days, fits the symptoms that Christie showed during her stay in Harrogate,” Norman asserts. The Times adds:
In his book, The Finished Portrait, Norman says that [Christie’s] adoption of a new personality--she took the name Teresa Neele--and failure to recognise herself in newspaper photographs were signs that the novelist had fallen into a psychogenic amnesia after a period of depression. ‘I believe she was suicidal,’ said Norman. ‘Her state of mind was very low and she writes about it later through the character of Celia in her autobiographical novel, Unfinished Portrait.’Read the whole story here.
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