Breakthrough (novel)

Breakthrough (literally "breakthrough") is the 1976 first novel by the American author Ken Grimwood , who later became known with the 1988 book Replay (German: Replay - The Second Game ). A German translation of Breakthrough is not available; the original is also out of print.

In preparation for the novel, Grimwood spent a year researching the subject of brain research at the University of London Medical Library .

Table of contents

Experiments on the brain

The American Elizabeth Austin (née Chandler) has been fighting her epilepsy since she was thirteen ; drug treatment does not work for her - above all because of the many side effects. In desperation, she lets herself go to an experiment by a Dr. Garrick, who wants to cure her with the help of electrical stimuli. Elizabeth is implanted with a chip that uses a remote control to stimulate the area in her brain that causes the cramps. The experiment is a complete success, Elizabeth is cured.
In her gratitude she feels obliged to the doctor, who can persuade her to carry out another series of experiments. He is convinced that the so far unexplored "silent zones" of the brain have important functions. There he plants more chips and stimulates them. In the vast majority of cases, nothing happens; once he hits a fear center and triggers a panic attack. Chip 12, however, reacts in an unexpected way: Elizabeth has extremely vivid hallucinations of a woman named Jenny Curran who lived near London in the mid-19th century . While the doctors dismiss this as nonsense, Elizabeth is convinced that this Jenny exists or was - is Elizabeth possibly a reincarnation of Jenny? Does she remember a previous life? Because her "hallucinations" run chronologically to Jenny's life ...

Two realities

Elizabeth promises to keep her experiences to herself in order not to undermine Garrick's research, but has a button for chip 12 installed on her remote control in addition to the control button for her epilepsy. From now on she loses herself more and more in Jenny's world, which culminates in the fact that she falls in love with her husband Philipp. The addiction increases: the device is switched on more and more frequently, so that Elizabeth occasionally lives in two directions and the images in her head overlap.

The turning point comes when Elizabeth has to find out that Jenny is planning the murder of her husband Philipp, because Jenny comes from the gutter and only wants to get money through rich Philipp. Elizabeth desperately tries to influence Jenny's actions. She manages to move Jenny's hand, then more ... until she suddenly causes Jenny to have an epileptic seizure. She withdraws, but practices more and more in order to be able to prevent the murder at the crucial moment.

A murder and its consequences

But then everything happens too quickly. Elizabeth can force Jenny to drop her pistol, but then Jenny takes over and stabs Philipp instead. Elizabeth fainted, causing Dr. Garrick disconnects Chip 12 at the hospital. When Elizabeth regains consciousness, she is obsessed with finding out how Jenny fared and whether she actually got away with the insane crime. But Dr. Garrick strictly refuses to give her another remote control for Chip 12. But Elizabeth can take a look at her file and copy the exact frequency and wattage for chip 12. On the pretext of needing a new remote control for a garage door, she orders this from a mechanic. It's child's play for him, but he corrects a mistake Elizabeth obviously made: The device would not work with just 8 watts - he makes it with 80 watts.

When Elizabeth turns on the device, she is catapulted with all her might and completely into Jenny's body - exactly at the moment when she is led to her execution on the scaffold . Elizabeth defends herself, wants to get back into her body, but of course nobody believes that she is not Jenny Curran. And suddenly Jenny is there again, both are united in her body, when the trap door opens and they have to suffocate together in agony.

On the last page of the book, Elizabeth seems to come to in her kitchen after she dies. She turns off the remote control and finds that her chip no longer reacts to it. But it's not Elizabeth who gets up from the floor, it's Jenny.