December 17, 2001|By Holly Selby | Holly Selby,SUN ARTS WRITER
Colleagues or patients who know psychologist Steven Sobelman may be forgiven if they sense something familiar while reading best-selling author David Baldacci's latest novel.
Called Last Man Standing, and ranked No. 4 on the New York Times best-seller list last week, it tells the story of Web London, a member of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team who decides to seek help from a psychiatrist. And while there's little physical resemblance between the Towson-based psychologist and Claire Daniels, the fictional psychiatrist invented by Baldacci, Sobelman played a guiding role in her creation.
To be sure, there are myriad other differences beyond the obvious between the real-life man and the fictional woman: He's a psychologist; she's a psychiatrist. He works in Maryland; she works in Virginia.
Still, the touches of Southwestern decor - including a cactus lamp - found in the office of the fictional Daniels?
Sobelman has those in his real-life office.
The stuffed animals and the container labeled "therapy in a jar" found in Daniels' fictional office?
Sobelman's office has those, too.
The hypnosis the fictional Daniels uses to treat the protagonist?
Sobelman uses that technique in his real-life practice, too.
The psychologist (whose real-life wife, Sloane Brown, covers Baltimore's social scene for The Sun) met the author six years ago at Book Bash, a local fund-raising event and the two became friends. About two years ago, when Baldacci began researching his novel, he turned to Sobelman, who has worked as a consultant with state and local law enforcement agencies on hostage negotiations.
As the book unfolds, Baldacci's protagonist, London, inexplicably freezes up during a drug raid - and his momentary inability to function saves his life. He becomes the lone member of a seven-man FBI team to survive an ambush. But after the only witness disappears, rumors and questions about London's loyalties begin to circulate.
While trying to discover who murdered his colleagues, London tangles with criminals including members of a white supremacy group and a drug ring. And his efforts to plumb the depths of his own psyche lead him to the beautiful psychiatrist Daniels.
Baldacci is author of seven books, including Absolute Power, which was made into a movie starring Clint Eastwood. The film, about an art-loving jewel thief (Eastwood) who witnesses a murder committed by the president of the United States, includes scenes shot at the Walters Art Museum.
In Last Man Standing, the author's aim was to create a convincing character whose behavior as a psychiatrist would ring true. "I wanted to add authenticity to the role of the psychiatrist and to make as real as possible the relationship between patient and doctor," he says.
Baldacci visited Sobelman's office and spent about a day talking about the mental health profession. He outlined his plot and characters for Sobelman, then asked if he found them plausible.
"I don't go out with a bunch of questions because I would probably get back a lot of static answers," Baldacci says. Instead, the author allows the conversation to flow wherever seems natural. "I try to absorb everything he says."
Often, Baldacci's imagination is particularly piqued by small details. Nuances, he says, may provide small gateways into large fictional developments. "The more you know about things, the more twists and subplots you can come up with. I think really dramatic events arise from small details built carefully, and that is what I try to do."
For example, he was intrigued by Sobelman's description of how psychologists may better discern a patient's true feelings through acute observation - in addition to listening. "Steve talked about `cueing' - body language and reading between the lines of what they say. About how you listen to the cues embedded in their speech," Baldacci says. "I was really interested in that."
And the author found the fact that Sobelman keeps teddy bears in his office to put patients (especially children) at ease interesting enough to include in his book.
After years of seeing - or reading - poorly drawn fictionalized accounts of psychologists and psychiatrists, Sobelman, who is president-elect of the Maryland Psychological Association and a professor at Loyola College, was happy to be consulted. "I've done professional writing - as part of being an academic - and I've co-authored books, but this is so totally different," he says. "And I just remember how badly some psychiatrists have been portrayed in other movies or books."
Take, for example, the psychiatrist played by Barbra Streisand in The Prince of Tides. In that film, Streisand's character sleeps with her patient - a thoroughly unethical action.
Perhaps Sobelman's proudest contribution to the book - and perhaps to the body of artistic works portraying psychiatrists and psychologists, in general - is that he strongly discouraged Baldacci from having his fictional psychiatrist have an affair with her patient.
"I said: `Why can't somebody just be ethical?' " Sobelman says.
The author thought about it for awhile and said, "You know, you're right."
No doubt psychologists and psychiatrists everywhere will thank them both.
