The Double Bind (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)

by Chris Bohjalian (Author)
Key Phrases: portfolio case, Bobbie Crocker, Long Island, Margot Ann (more...)

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (February 12, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400031664
• ISBN-13: 978-1400031665
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (253 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #13,710 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 0bsessive Reading With Creative Twists, February 28, 2007

By	Jill I. Shtulman (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Double Bind: A Novel (Hardcover)

Many years ago, I stayed up nights, enthralled by The Great Gatsby. Here, author Chris Bohjalian commandeers the Great Gatsby characters and breathes new life into them in this complex literary thriller.

The preface is heart-pounding: Laura Estabrook is attacked while riding her bicycle through Vermont's back roads. What really happened during that attack? I won't spoil it, but it's the catalyst for the rest of the novel, as Laura becomes obsessed with a former homeless patient with a history of mental illness and a box of photographs that may hold the key to her past.

I welcomed "old friends" into my life again -- Jay Gatsby, Daisy & Tom Buchanan, their daughter Pamela (now a dowager herself), George and Myrtle Wilson. They hold sway with the new characters brought to life by Chris Bohjalian.

There are as many twists and turns in this novel as there are on the Vermont bike roads that Laurel no longer travels. It's a psychological mystery story that kept me turning pages. Once started, the book becomes a compulsive page-turner; not perfect, but highly readable.

73 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read the book, but not too much about it..., March 20, 2007

By	Jesse Liberty "Silverlight Geek" (MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Double Bind: A Novel (Hardcover)

A surprisingly literate psychological thriller about a social worker, a destitute photographer and the folks who flocked around The Great Gatsby. This book gets better and better as it goes, and evolves into one of the most interesting novels I've read in quite a while. Highly recommended, but be careful not to let anyone tell you too much about it. By all means, avoid all reviews that might give away too much.

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars great disappointment, March 23, 2007

By	Christine L. Davis "aggbatt" (chicago, illinois United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Double Bind: A Novel (Hardcover)

I have ready every book written by Chris Bohjalian and I eagerly await each new volume. As I read this book, I waited for it to get better, waited for the story to pick up and it never did. And then the ultimate insult, from a man who has written so lovingly about women, of whom I have spoken about to many readers as the guy who writes as if he has the soul of a woman, the horrifiying ending. I was left speechless and then thought I will have to reread the entire book and try to figure out what was really fantasy and what was real fact. A great disappointment.