Having drawn a line under the Tales, 2000's The Night Listener, "a psychological suspense tale" about the quasi-paternal relationship between a lonely middle-aged man and a young boy dying of Aids.
"She turned it into a psychological thriller, a tale of survivorship," Ms. Philbrick said, "in such a way that made it seem like it wasn't a story that had been told before".
It's apparently the most common psychological justification for tales of spiritual possession and evil sightings when rudely awakened at 2 AM (shoutout to the Bent Neck Lady).
The hybrid form of the book — fairy tale, myth, psychological realism and fantasy — impresses.
Part cautionary tale, part psychological study, part riveting disaster narrative, the film, directed by Dan Klores, was released in 2007 to favorable, if somewhat astonished, notices.
So much so that you may begin to think that this sweet, feel-good spectacle is ill suited to a tale of psychological sadism in an apartheid township.
Quinn's passion for the Joker is a fascinating tale of psychological disturbance, the byproduct of a kind of second cousin to Stockholm syndrome.
Blind Alley, in 1939, flirted with suffocating psychological torment in its tale of a gangster who invades the home of a shrink.
However, this is a minor cavil about an otherwise pitch-perfect tale: a psychological tour-de-force about the cruelty of hope and, ultimately, the triumph of innocence.
