The Maddest Obsession

In The Maddest Obsession, obsession is portrayed not as a pathology but as the foundation of love. While Christian Allister and Gianna Marino’s traumatic pasts certainly inform the all-consuming nature of their relationship, the novel challenges the idea that their feelings are unusual in kind. All love is obsessive, the novel suggests, and the difference between a healthy and unhealthy relationship lies in how one understands and responds to that obsession.

The narrative establishes Christian’s obsessive nature as a core element of his personality, one he consciously links with his feelings for Gianna. He admits to his therapist, “I have an addictive personality” (1) and later clarifies that when he cannot fix disorder, his response is to “obsess.” For Christian, whose life is a rigid defense against past trauma, the deep emotions Gianna provokes are threatening. His fixation translates into fierce protection and unwavering attention, providing Gianna with a form of devotion she has never experienced before, but he also resists it, warning her again and again that she may cause him to give in to his desire for her. He even seeks a “diagnosis” of his feelings from a psychologist, implying that he views them as fundamentally maladaptive.