Mary Turner Thomson published The Bigamist in 2007 (first with the title “The Other Mrs Jordan.”). It tells the story of her marriage to Will Jordan, a man from New Jersey. She was from Scotland. She had two children with him but then discovered that he was already married to someone else and had many other children with several women, despite telling her that he was infertile. This new book both continues the story of Thomson’s investigation of Jordan’s life, and Thomson’s career as a writer and her connections with the other women that Jordan had victimized.

The Psychopath starts with a brief summary of the marriage and Thomson’s reflections on her former husband. She makes a case that Jordan is a psychopath, using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While the checklist mostly addresses personality traits, Thomson provides examples of when Jordan behaved badly in ways that might be explained by corresponding character traits. But that doesn’t prove that Jordan has those traits. Nevertheless, the rest of the book with its many cases of reported duping and conning of women by Jordan do suggest that his actions are part of a characteristic pattern of using women, fooling them, getting their money, and getting them pregnant. Thomson reports also that Jordan has been convicted in the UK of sexual relations with a child under 13. 

The book is a mixed bag. Parts are engaging. Others go into laborious detail and the reader may wonder if it is all necessary. That point came for me when Thomson talked about why she didn’t want to date after her marriage and instead got herself a dog, a cockapoo. While it is a story of Thomson’s survival, it is also to some extent an exercise in self-congratulation. It does help to listen to the unabridged audiobook, which is mostly performed by Thomson herself. Her tone helps make her a relatable narrator, and not arrogant. Interestingly, she says little about the weight gain she suffered that has been highlighted in some UK press stories.

It is remarkable that so many women fall for Jordan’s stories. Thomson is very clear that people who get duped by psychopaths should not be blamed. It is not their fault. Nevertheless, there is a question whether some people are more vulnerable to psychopaths, and Thomson does address that. She discusses “love bombing” and “gas lighting” as well as various other techniques that he used, and why some people are more liable to succumb to them. Some continue to engage with him even after they discover his duplicity, apparently unable to make a complete break.

There is also the issue of whether it should be a crime to have sex with someone through lying to them. There have been proposals that this should count as a form of rape or sexual assault. Thomson supports this and has done some work to formulate the legislation in the UK. She does not discuss the pros and cons of the proposal much, but she does believe it is justified.

There’s quite a lot that is interesting in The Psychopath, although it is a book in bad need of a good editor who would have pushed Thomson to cut down on the repetition and organize the book better. She does address important themes and her experience is relevant, but there is too much rambling and maybe too much extrapolation from her own experience without a more general survey of the experience of other women who have encountered other men who display similar behavior. 

Christian Perring is President of the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry.

Categories: Memoir

Keywords: psychopath, bigamy