The Double Bind (Vintage Contemporaries)

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The Double Bind (Vintage Contemporaries)

Author(s):

Chris Bohjalian

Label: Vintage
Publisher(s):

Vintage

Studio: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Binding: Paperback
List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $10.17
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

When Laurel Estabrook is attacked while riding her bicycle through Vermont?s back roads, her life is forever changed. Formerly outgoing, Laurel withdraws into her photography, spending all her free time at a homeless shelter. There she meets Bobbie Crocker, a man with a history of mental illness and a box of photographs that he won?t let anyone see. When Bobbie dies, Laurel discovers a deeply hidden secret?a story that leads her far from her old life, and into a cat-and-mouse game with pursuers who claim they want to save her.

In a tale that travels between the Roaring Twenties and the twenty-first century, between Jay Gatsby?s Long Island and rural New England, bestselling author Chris Bohjalian has written his most extraordinary novel yet.

Amazon.com Review

Best known for the provocative and powerful novel, Midwives (an Oprah Book Club® Selection), Chris Bohjalian writes beautiful and riveting fiction featuring what the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed "ordinary people in heartbreaking circumstances behaving with grace and dignity." In his new novel, The Double Bind, a literary thriller with references to (and including characters from) The Great Gatsby, Bohjalian takes readers on a haunting journey through one woman's obsession with uncovering a dark secret. We think Bohjalian fans will be thrilled with this compelling and unforgettable read, but just to be sure, we asked bestselling author Jodi Picoult to read The Double Bind and give us her take. Check out her review below. --Daphne Durham

Guest Reviewer: Jodi Picoult

From the provocative and gut-wrenching The Pact, to the brilliant genre-bending The Tenth Circle, to her latest novel about a high school shooting Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Picoult's riveting novels center on family and relationships, and bring to light questions and issues that remain with a reader long after the last page is turned.

I once heard a fellow novelist call writing "successful schizophrenia"--we invent people and worlds that don't exist; but instead of being medicated, we are paid for it. Although countless novels succeed in whisking the reader away on the heels of such fabrications, there are very few that pull the curtain away from the craft, allowing us inside the mind of a working novelist as he combines reality and fantasy. Chris Bohjalian's The Double Bind is not just one of these; it's the finest example I've ever read of a book that tips its hat to both the beauty of the literary creation, as well as the magical act of creating.

Fact and fiction become indistinguishable in The Double Bind: The story centers on Laurel Estabrook, a young social worker and survivor of a near-rape, who stumbles across photographs taken by a formerly homeless client and tries to understand how a man who'd taken snapshots of celebrities in the 50s and 60s might have wound up on the streets. However, an author's note tells us that Bohjalian conceived this book after being shown a batch of old photographs taken by a once-homeless man; and the actual photos of Bob "Soupy" Campbell are peppered throughout the text. In another neat twist, Bohjalian's resurrects details from The Great Gatsby, which become "real" in the context of his own novel--Laurel lives in West Egg; part of her hunt for her photographer's past involves meeting with the descendants of Daisy and Tom Buchanan.

As a writer who counts The Great Gatsby as one of the books that changed her life, this inclusion was both startling and remarkable for me. Who doesn't want one's favorite characters to come to life--even if it's only within the constraints of another fictional work? But Bohjalian chose his text wisely: no discussion of The Great Gatsby is complete without alluding to missed opportunities and unreliable sources--critical elements in Laurel's quest. And therein lies Bohjalian's true double bind: all stories--even the ones we tell ourselves--are subject to our own interpretation, and to the degree we can make others believe them.

The Double Bind may flirt with the classics, but it's not your father's stuffy old tome: it's the sort of book you want to read in one sitting, and it packs a twist at the end that will leave you speechless. It also, worthily, spotlights the cause of homelessness in a way that isn't preachy, but honest and explanatory. Ultimately, what Bohjalian's done is offer his lucky readers another reminder of why he's such an extraordinary author: by creating characters that become so real we lose the distinction between truth and embellishment; by reminding us that the story of any life--whether fictional, functional, or marginal--is one to be savored. --Jodi Picoult

Customer Reviews

Okay until the disappointing, illogical ending

It starts out with a brutal attack on a young woman, - kind of a downer.

But it gets interesting when Laurel finds a picture of herself just prior to the attack among the photographs of a former "client" of the homeless shelter where she works, and begins investigating what connection this man had with that day and place.

But the twist at the end - I won't spoil it - is contrived and illogical given the 3rd person narrative that the books is written in.

Ultimately it left me wondering why I just read a 400 page book about a brutal attack on a girl.

Double Bind

I was very satisfied with the condition of the book and the promptness in which it was received. I would definitely use this company again. Last time I gave them a very good review, but inadvertantly chose the wrong star. I hope this does not count against them because it was an excellent experience. Thanks MR

Such potential, but ultimately a rip-off

BEWARE OF "SPOILER" ... BUT THEN AGAIN, IT MAY SAVE YOU TIME. The 3 stars are for wrapping the actual photos of "Soupy" Campbell into the story. They're for the intriguing link with The Great Gatsby. They're for a compelling story with multiple layers of meaning. This could have been a great book earning 5 stars. Instead, however, it turns out that the author was dishonest with his readers. I feel insulted and cheated, robbed of my time and emotional investment in the book. There are literary devices that could have made this work. However, the author took the easy way out. As a result, upon completing the book, and, I would venture, even upon rereading it (although I haven't wasted my time), it is impossible to tell what was "real" and what was imagined by the main character. There are no dividing lines or hints such as narrator point of view or what characters were present in the scenes. The imaginary scenes turn out to have been so pervasive, that we are left without knowing what, if anything, was real. Maybe that's the point, so I give it these generous 3 stars. But I wish the author worked a little harder and demonstrated some integrity. I feel betrayed and robbed.

Excellent

Read this book, and you may want to read it again. This story flows without a gap. If you skip ahead while you read this book, you will spoil it for yourself. While it is not what I would call a mystery, you will find yourself discovering clues for weeks after finishing the book.

Gatsby on the Rocks with a Twist

After 24 years of reading and hundreds of books, I am still a sucker for the plot twist. All is not as it seems in this novel where "The Great Gatsby" treads lightly over that semi-permeable line between fiction and reality. Bohjalian is an incredibly talented writer, one who had me grasping at straws outside the realm of "willing suspension of disbelief," and convincing myself I knew what was true and what was going to happen.

Looking back, I cannot believe I fell for the misdirection, but it makes me want to reread the novel with a new perspective. I gave this reading four stars because for some reason the story did not pull me in until near the end, but a second reading might yield different results. I would recommend this novel, especially for lovers of Gatsby, but see it through to the final page because I assure you it's worth it!

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