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The Double Bind (Paperback)

by Chris Bohjalian (Author)

4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

List Price:	CDN$ 18.95
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Product Details

Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (Feb 12 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1400031664
ISBN-13: 978-1400031665
Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.2 x 2.3 cm
Shipping Weight: 363 g

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #13,005 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#52 in Books > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers > Psychological & Suspense

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Product Description

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.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From AudioFile

Susan Denaker guides Bohjalian heroine Laurel Estabrook through a progressively tangled web. After Laurel is viciously attacked while biking in Vermont, she withdraws from life and devotes herself to working in a homeless shelter. There she meets an old man with a box of photos that depict the characters from THE GREAT GATSBY, as well as Laurel herself--on that infamous biking road. Denaker makes Laurel so sane and convincing that the explosive climax is never tipped off by her voice or inflections. Denaker is not as strong with the minor players, however; some come off as caricatures. At the end, a new voice playing the novel's psychiatrist comments on Laurel's story and socks us with the shocking conclusion. His voice is powerful but is not credited. M.T.B. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Double Bind, Mar 30 2007

By	Michael Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

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

With its palpable sense of tension and with author Chris Bohjalian's trademark nuanced focus, The Double Bind weaves the classic novel The Great Gatsby, into a compelling story that involves the plight of the homeless, the ramifications of schizophrenia and the aftermath of a violent assault, the disfiguring emotional effects of which reverberate on one girl for years.

The young Laurel Estabrook isn't prepared for tragedy, yet it strikes her randomly, altering her life forever. Brutally attacked by while biking in the bucolic Underhill in the Vermont Countryside, Laurel survives being raped, but is physically and emotionally scarred by the experience.

Laurel gropes blindly through the days immediately following the assault, trying to return to some kind of normalcy. Eventually she goes on to college, which leads her to working in BEDS, a homeless shelter in Burlington where she meets the fifty-six year old transient Bobbie Crocker.

Bobbie has a collection of dog-eared badly preserved, photographs, with the faces were clearly recognizable, as well as jazz musicians, sculptors, and people playing chess in Washington Square. Laurel notices they're a few more recent ones from Underhill, including some of a dirt road and one with a girl on a bike.

In one photo Laurel recognizes instantly the home of Pamela Buchanan Marshfield and the country club from her childhood, including the Norman-like tower owned by a bootlegger named Gatsby and in another one, there's a young boy with his sister which Laurel presumes is Bobby Crocker himself. But if Pamela did have a brother, how could he have wound up homeless and mentally ill in Vermont?

Laurel tries to make sense of the box of dingy pictures while her boss wants to give Bobbie what he deserved, an exhibition highlighting Crocker's photographs, reminding the city that the homeless are people too, and have talents and dreams and accomplishments. But Laurel's curiosity is piqued when she discovers that Bobby was taking photos for Life Magazine and that he had a close association with another famous photographer who also worked for Life.

She becomes most fixated, however, over the photo of the girl on the bike and intrigued by the odd coincidence that Bobbie Crocker had owned pictures of the country club of her youth. Meanwhile, her best friend Talia and her older boyfriend, the emotionally indifferent David, begin to question Laurel's interest in Bobby Crocker.

Laurel is gradually seduced by the secrets of the Buchanan's and their ties to the Gatsby's, becoming increasingly paranoid when Pamela Buchanan expresses an interest in getting her hands on the photos. She sees Bobby's work as a deluded and malicious attempt to expose the Buchanan family secrets and has spent a not insubstantial part of her life trying to salvage her parents' reputation, shuddering when she imagines what sort of truth might be conjured from among her brother's old photos.

Bohjalian steadily builds the pressure, unraveling the complex mystery of how Bobby went from the mansion across from Laurel's childhood swim club to a dirt road and then to a homeless shelter in northern Vermont. Along the way, the author perfectly captures Laurel's sense of obsession and vulnerability, and also her desperate need for reassurance as she tries to unlock the mystery of Bobby Crocker's photographic legacy.

The final revelations are indeed startling, and indeed threw this reader for a loop. Bobby certainly had his own devils, but the word "devil" also comes to haunt Laurel, who along with all the other worlds that had dogged her for years, finally understands how a forgiving memory is perhaps the only way to get by and also how one family can be single handedly capable of so much delusion, distortion and disdain. Mike Leonard March 07.

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