Customer Reviews

Border Crossing (Charnwood Library)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This engaging and very readable novel explores the inner life of a psychologist, Tom Seymour. Tom is trying to cope with the possible break-up of his marriage when he is visited by a figure from his past, Danny Miller. More than a decade earlier, Tom testified in court that Danny understood the difference between right and wrong and therefore was fit to stand trial as an adult. In the electrifying opening chapter, Tom meets the adult Danny, and is subsequently forced to consider the extent to which he may have contributed to Danny's problems.

The book explores themes including trust, betrayal, what we owe to other human beings, and the consequences of our actions. The title has multiple layers of meaning, but clearly one of the borders that fascinates Barker here, as it did in the _Regeneration_ trilogy, is the border between psychologist and patient. How much of a barrier should Tom draw between himself and Danny? What are the consequences if Danny crosses that border? Is there a danger in being too close to someone like Danny, even if one has the best of intentions? Finally, how different is Tom from Danny? Is there a little bit of cruelty in all children, all people?

Although this novel touches on a hot button issue--children and punishment--it steadfastly resists plot cliches. Danny Miller is a complex, enigmatic, intelligent, untrustworthy, yet at times movingly vulnerable character. The novel is all the stronger for refusing to reduce him to the role of either victim or monster.

Ms. Pat Barker has written some wonderful books. Many consider her, "Regeneration Trilogy", her best work, and it was the most enjoyable work of hers for me as well. Her newest work, "Border Crossing", was frustrating as it appeared weak only to become very intriguing, however in the end it did not rise to the level of her other works.

The book opens with an event that is so unlikely as to seem absurd. Ms. Barker then does a wonderful job of providing the justification for this act and uses it to stage the continuation of a relationship ended 13 years previously. She develops great tension as to the ethical choices a doctor must make, and reconstructs the years of incarceration of a juvenile murderer that is unnerving and populated with some of the best characters she has created.

As she has done in the past, she creates and resolves a great many issues in the relatively brief span of 215 pages. When the read is complete the story and some of its elements are not. Critical issues that are seemingly the justification for revaluating the past are brought to the very edge of revelation and then dropped. There is no resolution of the story just a repetition of the original placement of an individual in new circumstances. The story could easily be continued and perhaps that is what she has in mind. I certainly hope this is the case as she has created at least 2 characters that are excellent, one of whom could be the darkest creation of her writing to date.

This is an easy, compelling read from start to finish. Engaging characters, take you through the story of a boy murder ( or is he) and that of his psychologist. At the time the author makes one thinks about wider issues, of capacity, morality, and moral responsility. When someone serves time in prison, what is a good outcome, what should we expect from them and from those around them. If these themes sound a little heavy - worry not, Barkers fluent style and ability to keep us guessing, mean that you wont want to put this book down.

Danny Miller commits murder at age 10 and was convicted by the help of the man that saves his life 13 years later. Therapist Tomy Seymour, who testified at Miller's trial, saves Miller from drowning in the opening scenes and spends the rest of the novel figuring out what exactly happened so many years ago.

Barker paints a stunning portrait inside the mind of a child murderer, who manipulates every person who tries to help him, especially Seymour. The shirnk re-interviews those close to Miller immediately after he is sent to prison, and the tension builds in a series of therapy sessions he has with Miller.

While the climax and the ending were deflating and seem to make the whole exercise a sham and setup by Miller, Barker's writing carries the day and makes this a sensational read.

A man who committed a murder when only a young boy (Danny) is released from prison and encounters the child psychologist (Tom) whose testimony was crucial in having him convicted. Their ongoing relationship and the events taking place in the child psychologists life form the basis for this novel. What is fascinating about it is the thought processes we hear running through Tom's head as he questions his own previous judgement, not just with Danny but also with Lauren (Tom's wife). Barker has very cleverly not tried to put us inside Danny's head (an altogether difficult exercise, surely?) but allowed us to experience Tom's confusion over the limited information that Danny allows himself to reveal. I was in doubt about how things would end right up to the final page. The author doesn't try to answer all the questions (which obviously proves frustrating for some reviewers), keeping the novel at a managable length, but raises enough to keep me thinking about the issues for a long time. Once I started reading I could hardly put it down.

Criminal psychologist Tom is out for a walk with his wife, Lauren, when he happens upon a young man attempting suicide. Tom saves his life, and later recognizes who is,improbably the boy he was once called upon to evaluate after the child committed an act of murder some years ago. Tom begins meeting with Danny, who has been released on parole and finds himself at loose ends. In exploring the events leading up to the murder, Tom finds himself reevaluating his previous testimony and grappling with the question of nature or nurture. At the same time, he must come to terms with his own crumbling marriage. "Border Crossing" examines the makeup of a criminal and explores the possibility of redemption.

To be haunted by the ghost of someone dead is a disconcerting enough experience, but the ramifications of a haunting by the living are far more immediate and potentially devastating. Tom Seymour, the protaganist of Pat Barker's nuanced novel "Border Crossing" is a renowned psychologist with a failing marriage whose past comes back to him when he rescues a former patient from a possible suicide attempt. But even as he drags the young man half-dead from the ocean, the questions bubble to the surface. Was this a chance meeting? Or had the patient, whom Tom had treated a decade before as part of the legal team prosecuting a young boy for a brutal murder, come back into his life with some kind of sinister purpose?

Answers are elusive as the Tom relives his past, and examines his own culpability in the unravelling of the boy's life. His search for the truth about Danny, a boy who grew to manhood with the shadow of a murder conviction over his head, plays out over the backdrop of Tom's divorce and the questioning of many of the fundamental beliefs of his life. The facts he uncovers, and those he doesn't, give him insight into his own life that seems more necessary than welcome.

If mysteries are the most compelling stories, and people the most complex mysteries, than Pat Barker has created a small masterpiece here. The author puts forward Tom's frustration and obsession with subtle skill, as the puzzle of Danny's persona eludes a solution like a Rubik's cube. Each approach to the truth thwarted starts Tom down a different road, one with new, and possibly more dangerous, consequences.

For such a small book there's much substance here. The writing is gentle and accessible, evenly paced, graced with subtle and thoughtful innuendo. Barker gives us just enough about Danny in the end, not to think we've answered every question, but to imagine we're asking the right ones.

Border Crossing is the latest in a long line of psychological thrillers to have hit the high-street bookshelves recently and adds
further weight to the opinion that British writers are in the prime of their literary careers. Having already produced 9 books, Pat Barker demonstrates the rich variety of narratives available with this dangerously realistic tale of a child psychologist and his encounters with one of his former patients.

Tom Seymour is the psychologist, recently separated from his wife, who rescues Danny Miller, a notorious child-killer, after he tries to commit suicide by jumping into a river. As their relationship begins to develop and Danny takes Tom further into his confidence, it is apparent that there is something dangerous at work within Miller's mind. When Seymour gave evidence at
Danny's trial he declared him highly disturbed but years later he begins to question this decision, realising there is a fine line
between calculating genius and outright madness.

As Tom becomes further entwined into the 'confessional' Danny is determined to give him the local news agencies are informed
that a child-murderer is living in the local area. With the media creating an intense witch-hunt and vigilantes prowling the streets,Miller must flee but Seymour is left with a decision that could affect far more than his professional status.

A simply sensational novel, Border Crossing captures the scenes of fear, anger and bewilderment immaculately, maintaining a
breath-taking tempo and capturing the reader's attention, refusing to release it before the final page is turned.

When child psychologist Tom Seymour pulls a would-be suicide from a river, he recognises the young man as Danny Miller, the child whom Tom's assessment had helped imprison for the brutal murder of an old woman thirteen years ago. Now out of prison and supposedly starting a new life, Danny has hunted Tom down in the hope that he might be able to help him understand the killing. With his own life troubled and his marriage collapsing, Tom succumbs to the temptation to travel into Danny's past.

The problem is that what he finds there is not particularly riveting, and certainly not unusual enough to account for an act which society regards with horror as completely beyond the boundaries of "normality". Unlike, say, Peter Shaffer's "Equus", when Danny finally remembers the murder there is little depth, no sense of climax, no sense of a mystery unravelled, not even much horror. The novel sets up the idea of a journey into the mind of an outcast, the child who kills, but never lives up to what it promises.

The second problem is the characterisation. Danny Miller is a pale reworking of Billy Prior, Barker's brilliant creation in "Regeneration", complete with Prior's unpleasant father, manipulative charm and "wintry smile", but nowhere near as interesting (especially once you recognise him as Prior). Tom isn't even a shadow of "Regeneration"'s Dr Rivers, and there is even less substance to the supporting cast, his wife, his colleagues, and the people whose lives Danny has passed through. Although there are hints that there will be trouble between Tom and Danny, since Danny seems to blame Tom for his imprisonment and is renowned for getting people who deal with him to "cross the invisible line", the relationship barely develops, again being a lack-lustre echo of the intense but still professional relationship between Rivers and Prior.

Barker is capable of extraordinary writing, as evidenced in her superb "Regeneration" trilogy, a remarkable exploration of people who kill and what it does to their psyches. It's a pity that she seems to have been rewriting it ever since.

Tom, a psychologists, is out on a walk with his wife when a man jumps into the near by river in an attempted suicide. Tom dives in after the man and saves his life. Tom finds out after saving the man's life that he was a former patient of his years ago. The former patient, Danny, had committed a murder when he was only a young boy under the age of 10 years olds. Tom then begins counseling Danny again and unraveling what actually happened during the murder. Though while unraveling the mysteries of the past, his own life is also unraveling making everything quit complicated.
This is another great novel by Pat Barker. Barker's in depth knowledge of the human mind is very prominent in her writing as always. This book explores a more modern problems which besiege the mind opposed to her other books like her Regeneration series. Barker's writing style is unique and easy to follow along. Yet it offers a more in depth option for those looking for more of a challenge. Her characters are very tangible and likeable or distasted depending on what she wants you feeling about the characters. Though personally I believe her characters are a little to under developed for the most part, but that's just personal taste.
The book, Border Crossing, itself is very good. It is not a fast paced or slow methodical book. It was difficult to put down at points while at other points left a great stopping place. It also introduces some difficult to grasp ideas which left my head hurting, especially reading it late at night. The book did not have many sexual scenes which is a nice break from most of our more modern novels which will depict those scenes in great detail. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and will probably read it again some time within the next year or so. Border Crossing is a must own for all Pat Barker groupies, fanatics, or those who just plain like her writing. It is also a great novel for those who want to start reading Barker's books. It is good even for those who are looking for something to read, whether it is on the beach, late at night after work, or just for fun. It is one of the better books I have read in my life time.