Psycho by Robert Bloch *contains spoilers*

      One of the books that I read over Spring Break was Psycho by Robert Bloch. It is about a nam named Norman Bates, who runs the Bates Motel. The back of the book says, "Norman Bates loves his Mother. She has been dead for the past twenty years, or so people think. Norman knows better though. He has lived with Mother ever since leaving the hospital in the old house up on the hill above the Bates motel. One night Norman spies on a beautiful woman that checks into the hotel as she undresses. Norman can't help but spy on her. Mother is there though. She is there to protect Norman from his filthy thoughts. She is there to protect him with her butcher knife." The book was also turned into an Alfred Hitchcock movie in 1960. So basically, a woman, Mary Crane, checks into the motel after stealing $40,000 and Norman Bates's mother kills the girl because Norman was spying on her. The rest of the book about the missing persons investigation that goes on about her. 

After reading, I wonder how many other people Norman's "mother" has killed. In the end of the book, a psychiatrist, after learning the whole story and diagnosing Norman, asks the police if they have any missing persons cases that were not solved. We find out that it was Norman's "mother" who had murdered those people. But we never find out just how many people were murdered at the Bates Motel. 

In the book, we learn a lot about Norman and his relationship with his mother. We learn that he loves his mother so much that he becomes her. He dresses up like her, talks like her, and thinks like her. When he becomes her, if he notices Norman's attraction to another woman, he, or should I say his mother, becomes jealous. That jealousy takes over and "his mother" kills the girl. As they described it in the book, he can never be 100% Norman, but he can be 100% mother. 

Something that I think is interesting is that Psycho is based on a real person. A man named Ed Gein who was a "murderer who lived a double life." I don't know how much of the story was real and how much was made up, but I think it is really interesting that it is based on a real person.