Psycho

Psycho (1959) is a horror novel by Robert Bloch and the inspiration for filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock’s film of the same name, which came out one year later. While Hitchcock’s adaptation has largely eclipsed Bloch’s original in the public eye, fans of the film will recognize the basic plot and the major twists in Bloch’s novel. However, Bloch’s Norman Bates is (physically) unrecognizable from the version Anthony Perkins played on screen. Psycho is a slasher thriller that evolves into a work of psychological horror as the revelations about Norman Bates’s relationship with his mother, criminal acts, and mental health condition come to light. It is important to note, however, that Psycho is a product of its time and relies on disproven approaches to mental health that are out of favor among mental health professionals and experts. Specifically, Psycho tends to correlate mental health conditions with criminal behavior, particularly violent crime, while in fact, people with mental health conditions are far more likely to experience violent crime than to perpetrate it.

This guide references the Overlook Press paperback edition, published in 2010.

Content Warning: This guide describes and analyzes the source text’s treatment of trauma, abuse, and mental health. The novel contains stigmatizing depictions of cross-dressing and an individual with a mental health condition, which relies on outdated and offensive tropes that connect mental health conditions with violence.

Plot Summary

Norman Bates is a timid, middle-aged man running the Bates Motel on the rural outskirts of a small town called Fairvale. Norman’s mother, Norma, is a domineering and puritanical woman who still governs Norman’s life, even though he is 40. Norman blames his mother for not selling the motel before the state built a new highway, leaving the motel starving for business. On a stormy night, Norman argues with Norma, who berates him for being spineless and taking no initiative in life. Feeling deflated, Norman puts his mother to bed and turns on the motel’s sign to attract passing travelers.

Lost after taking a wrong turn off the highway, Mary Crane stumbles upon the Bates motel. Mary is on the run after stealing $40,000 from her boss, Mr. Lowry. Mary spent her young adulthood caring for her ailing mother, while her sister, Lila, went to college. After their mother’s death, the sisters moved in together, and Mary went on a cruise. On the ship, Mary met Sam Loomis, and the two fell in love and became engaged. However, Sam will not marry Mary until he pays off the debts he inherited from his father, which should take two more years. In the meantime, they live far apart. Mary plans to use the stolen money to pay off Sam’s debts so they can start their life together. As Mary drives, her resolve begins to waver and she decides to take a room at the Bates Motel to think things over.

Norman is awkward, yet friendly. He does not seem threatening, so Mary accepts his invitation to dinner at his house, which is behind the motel. Mary is astonished by the house’s interior, which looks frozen in time from the previous century. Norman describes his difficult relationship with his mother, and when Mary suggests he take control of his life and get his mother psychiatric help, Norman loses his temper. He insists his mother is sane, blaming himself for ruining her mother’s life and feeling indebted to her. Norman apologizes for his outburst, and Mary excuses herself back to her room, which is next to the office. While Norman watches her through a peephole in the office, Mary resolves to return the stolen money. With this weight off her conscience, she takes a shower. An old woman enters the bathroom, but Mary doesn’t see her until it is too late. The intruder kills and decapitates Mary with a knife.

Norman’s conversation with Mary leaves him shaken. In the hotel office, he gets drunk, recalling how his mother threatened to kill Mary when he put her to bed that night. Norman passes out from the whiskey. When he wakes up, he discovers Mary’s body. He contemplates turning Norma in to the police but decides against it. Norman puts Mary’s body in her car and submerges it in a nearby swamp. He cleans the crime scene as thoroughly as he can. He finds one of Mary’s earrings but not its mate and assumes the other is still in Mary’s ear.

Sam Loomis sits in the office at his hardware store in Fairvale, calculating sales and thinking about Mary. A visitor knocks at the door, and Sam kisses her, mistaking her for Mary. He realizes his error: The visitor is Lila Crane, Mary’s sister. Lila explains that she has not heard from Mary since she left home without warning a week ago. The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Milton Arbogast, a private investigator that Mr. Lowry’s firm hired to investigate the missing $40,000. Arbogast grills Sam and Lila until he is convinced they are not accomplices to the theft. Lila wants to report Mary missing, but Arbogast asks for 24 hours to follow up on final leads. Lila and Sam spend an anxious day waiting for Arbogast to call, wondering how well they really know Mary. Arbogast calls, saying he followed Mary’s trail to the Bates Motel. He plans to question the old woman he saw in the house’s window. They do not hear from him again.

Norman shaves, thinking of his relationship with his mother. Sometimes he feels like two people, reduced to a child when confronted by Norma. Norman has had to act as an adult to keep them both safe. He spends an uneventful afternoon in the motel office until Arbogast arrives. The detective questions Norman, tricking him into admitting he had dinner with Mary. Arbogast declares that he saw Mrs. Bates in the window and pressures Norman to allow him to question her about Mary. Reluctantly, Norman goes to the house to warn his mother. Suspiciously calm, Norma prepares to meet Arbogast. After she lets him inside, she kills him with Norman’s razor. Norman cleans up his mother’s mess, waiting until dark to roll Arbogast in a rug and dispose of him the same way he did Mary, rolling his Buick into the swamp. Norman locks Norma in the fruit cellar for her own protection and concocts a story to cover for Arbogast’s absence.

The next morning, Sam and Lila go to Sheriff Chambers, who listens to their story and guesses that Arbogast had found another clue about Mary and left town. He calls Norman, who tells him that Mary indicated she was heading to Chicago and that Arbogast left upon learning this. Further, Arbogast must have been lying about seeing Norman’s mother, who has been dead for 20 years, since she and her new husband, Joe Considine, died by suicide together. Norman was so traumatized that he spent several months hospitalized in a mental health facility. Lila discovers that Arbogast checked out of his hotel and intended to return for his bags but never did. She and Sam return to the sheriff to request a formal inquest. Chambers goes to the Bates Motel, and Norman allows him to inspect the property, but the sheriff finds nothing amiss. Unsatisfied, Lila wants to go to the motel herself. She suspects that the woman Arbogast saw in the window might have been Mary, held hostage in Norman’s house.

Sam and Lila check in to the motel under phony names as a married couple. Norman, drinking again, sees through this façade but makes no objections, even allowing them to rent the room where Mary died. Norman watches through the peephole as Lila finds Mary’s missing earring behind the shower stall, along with what Sam thinks is dried blood. Sam convinces Lila to go to the sheriff while he keeps Norman busy.

In the lobby, Norman offers Sam a drink while they talk. Sam tries to keep calm as Norman’s conversation becomes increasingly disturbing. He claims that Norma is still alive; he exhumed her body, which was in a state of suspended animation, and revived it with something akin to magic. Norman reveals that he saw Lila park the car up the road and walk to the house. Before Sam can react, Norman bashes his head with the whiskey bottle. Lila searches for Mary in Norman’s house, which is like an antique time capsule, eventually discovering the door to the fruit cellar. Inside, she finds Norma’s mummified body. Lila screams. Norman, dressed in his mother’s clothes, with makeup on his face, attacks her with a knife. Sam arrives just in time to wrest the knife from Norman’s hands.

Sam visits the psychiatric hospital sometime later for an interview with Norman’s psychiatrist and relays the information he gleaned to Lila, admitting he does not fully understand it. Norman has dissociative identity disorder, Sam reports, which splits his psyche between his child and adult selves and his mother. He adopted his mother’s persona after he murdered her and Joe Considine. “Norma” surfaced whenever Norman felt threatened. This seems to give Lila closure; she believes that Norman has suffered more than any of them. Later, in Norman’s cell, Norma’s personality assimilates into Norman’s other personalities. Norma sits perfectly still to show she is harmless; she blames Norman for the murders. She lets a fly crawl on her. Norma would not even hurt a fly.