The Double Bind: A Novel (Hardcover)

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

Editorial Reviews

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

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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

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From Publishers Weekly
Readers will be startled to learn early on that the heroine of this engrossing puzzle, 26-year-old Laurel Estabrook, was born in West Egg. Wait a minute, wasn't West Egg where Jay Gatsby lived? Laurel works in a Burlington, Vt., homeless shelter and is trying to overcome mental and physical scars incurred from a brutal assault some six years earlier. After being given a portfolio of photographs taken by a recently deceased resident of the shelter, Bobbie Crocker, she becomes obsessed with questions surrounding what appears to be a picture of herself shot on the day of her attack. Laurel's already fragile mental state begins to unravel as she follows Bobbie's life from his rich-kid childhood on Long Island to homelessness in Vermont. The Gatsby references form the basis of the mystery, compelling readers to try to imagine how this fictional backdrop relates to the novel's "reality." It's a high-wire act for bestseller Bohjalian (Midwives), and while the climactic explanation may be a letdown for some, he generally pulls off a tricky and intriguing premise. (Feb.)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books; 1ST edition (February 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400047463
• ISBN-13: 978-1400047468
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (253 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #212,378 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)

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

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)

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.