The Double Bind: A Novel
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- ISBN13: 9780739365755
- Condition: USED – VERY GOOD
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Product Description
Throughout his career, Chris Bohjalian has earned a reputation for writing novels that examine some of the most vital issues of our time. With Midwives, he explored the literal and metaphoric place of birth in our culture. In The Buffalo Soldier, he introduced us to one of contemporary literature’s most beloved foster children. And in Before You Know Kindness, he plumbed animal rights, gun control, and what it means to be a parent.
Chris Bohjalian’s riveting fiction keeps us awake deep into the night. As The New York Times has said, “Few writers can manipulate a plot with Bohjalian’s grace and power.” Now he is back with an ambitious new novel that travels between Jay Gatsby’s Long Island and rural New England, between the Roaring Twenties and the twenty-first century.
When college sophomore 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 and starts to work 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 suddenly, Laurel discovers that he was telling the truth: before he was homeless, Bobbie Crocker was a successful photographer who had indeed worked with such legends as block Berry, Robert Frost, and Eartha Kitt.
As Laurel’s fascination with Bobbie’s ex- life starts to merge into obsession, she becomes convinced that some of his photographs reveal a deeply hidden, dark family tree secret. Her search for the truth will lead her further from her ancient life—and into a cat-and-mouse game with pursuers who aver they want to save her.
In this spellbinding literary thriller, rich with complex and compelling characters—including Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan—Chris Bohjalian takes readers on his most intriguing, most haunting, and most unforgettable journey yet.
From the Hardcover edition.Amazon.com Review
Best known for the provocative and powerful novel, Midwives (an Oprah Book Club® Selection), Chris Bohjalian writes gorgeous 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 Fantastic Gatsby, Bohjalian takes readers on a haunting journey through one woman’s obsession with uncovering a dark secret. We reflect Bohjalian fans will be tickled with this compelling and unforgettable read, but just to be sure, we questioned bestselling leader Jodi Picoult to read The Double Bind and give us her take. Check out her review not more than. –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 tree 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 as a replacement for of being medicated, we are paid for it. Although countless novels make it 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 effective 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 making.
Fact and fiction become indistinguishable in The Double Bind: The tale 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 know how a man who’d taken snapshots of celebrities in the 50s and 60s might have wound up on the streets. But, an leader’s note tells us that Bohjalian conceived this book after being shown a batch of ancient photographs taken by a once-homeless man; and the actual photos of Bob “Soupy” Campbell are peppered throughout the text. In another clean twist, Bohjalian’s resurrects details from The Fantastic 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 Fantastic 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 Fantastic Gatsby is perfect lacking alluding to missed opportunities and unreliable sources–critical fundamentals in Glory quest. And therein lies Bohjalian’s right double bind: all tales–even the ones we tell ourselves–are theme to our own interpretation, and to the degree we can make others judge them.
The Double Bind may flirt with the classics, but it’s not your father’s stuffy ancient tome: it’s the sort of book you want to read in one sitting, and it packs a twist at the end that will place 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 leader: by making characters that become so real we lose the honor between truth and embellishment; by reminding us that the tale of any life–whether fictional, functional, or marginal–is one to be savored. –Jodi Picoult
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This is a tale of a woman with an miserable past, who finished up with some photographs from a homeless shelter. The person who took the pictures were related to the infamous Buchanans of ‘the Fantastic Gatsby’, still wealthy and powerful after 80 years.
She tries to find herself from the photos, as a replacement for of bringing the tale to the light.
Both attempts end tragically. Pamela Buchanan would make sure that Laurel, the protagonist, will never get out from the mental institution alive, while collecting and destroying all the photographs.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
Laurel Estabrook has crippling memories of a near-rape by the side of the road in a rural area of Vermont. She was riding her bike, when two men in a pickup stopped and committed the assault on her body. Now, seven years later, she is effective as a social worker in a shelter for homeless people. One of the residents, an elderly man named Bobbie Crocker, has died leaving behind a bunch of photographs that he clearly has taken. Laurel decides to find out as much as she can about Bobbie by doing some investigative work on the subjects and places in these pictures. Laurel gets deeper and deeper into this project, not taking the time to sleep, eat, or do any additional daily tasks. The readers and her friends and family tree start to doubt her sanity. Some of the subjects of the photographs are F.Scott Fitzgerald’s legendary Jay Gatsby, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and their daughter Pamela. Is Bobby their long-lost son? It makes compelling reading, but I was left confused at the end. Did all of this really take place, or was it all the delusions of a mentally-ill woman? I just wasn’t sure even after the leader to some extent clarified it. It’s a excellent tale, but if the leader had spent a small more time developing the ending it would have helped me tie it all together.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
I had never heard of Bohjalian, but I selected this book up and was sufficiently interested to bring it home. The first chapter caught my attention, but it was all downhill from there. It’s not terrible, but it’s certainly not my thing. First, the jacket and reviews call it a “psychological thriller” and talk about how unexpected the ending is. Ehhh… not really. I guessed what was going to take place within the first couple of chapters. Second, the protagonist’s journey throughout the book felt jerky and unrealistic. Third, multiple unnecessary characters (for example — Whit — why??). In fleeting, this book reads like a soap opera: dramatic but ultimately unsatisfying. In fact, this book reminded me a lot of Jodi Picoult, whose writing I HATE, for the same reason — her books are all about “shocking events” with no substance. So I’m not surprised that she wrote the glowing review of it — if you like Ms. Picoult’s genre (i.e., books proposed for Midwestern house wives to gab about in their book clubs), I’m sure you’ll like this book too; it’s along the same lines as her stuff, but written better. But if you like real literature, skip this one — there are far more talented authors out there who do far more justice to this tragic theme matter.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
Dull yawner of a book. The characters are right out of a made for TV movie. Don’t regret wasting my time on too many book, but this one I do.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Poorly written, uninteresting characters, The Fantastic Gatsby come-to-life? Give me a break. I couldn’t even end it and after a name revealed the huge ‘twist’ ending, I’m glad I didn’t bother. Was my first Bohjalian experience and I don’t reflect I’ll try another.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5