Double Vision (Hardcover)

Grieving sculptor Kate Frobisher is the widow of Ben, a photographic journalist who traveled the world's wars. He was killed by a sniper just after photographing a still life of abandoned Soviet tanks in Afghanistan. As the book opens, Kate loses control of her car on a winter night and suffers injuries to her neck and back, which prevent her from resuming work on her latest commission - a monumental Christ figure for an outdoor promontory, which will be viewed from afar as well as up close, presenting profound technical difficulties for the artist, who must make the statue work from two very different vantage points.

Stephen Sharkey, a colleague and close friend of Ben's, has come to the countryside to write a book on war, perception, and the journalists' effects on what they see. He will be using Ben's photographs in his book. He and Ben were in New York on 9/11 and Stephen is reminded that life goes on in all its mundane triumphs and tragedies when he calls home to connect with his wife that night only to discover her infidelity. But it's not until after Ben's death that he quits his job, gets a divorce, and starts his book.

Stephen's working retreat is a cottage belonging to his physician brother, Robert, near Kate's old farmhouse. Robert and his wife, Beth, have a son with Asperger's syndrome, cared for by Justine, the 19-year-old daughter of the local vicar, a man of deliberate conscience who takes in former convicts. Justine, recovering from an affair with one of them, Peter, a rather aloof, handsome enigma, takes up with Stephen, who finds himself rejuvenated, if a little self-conscious. Peter, recommended by the vicar, has become a temporary assistant to Kate, who dislikes having anyone around while she is working, but requires the physical aid.

Each has suffered (or will suffer) some trauma, or at least setback, that affects their perceptions and progress through life. It's only the war-ravaged dead for whom the violation is final, although witnesses, perpetrators and those who interpret the images of atrocities to the wider public immortalize their suffering.

Stephen ponders the novel's overt themes -perception and violence - while negotiating his way through an affair with a girl young enough to be his daughter. " 'Why won't you watch the news?' he asked [Justine]. It staggered him, this indifference to what was going on in the world." Justine, parroting her previous lover, says she can read the papers. " 'It's the voyeurism of looking at it, that's what's wrong.' "

With Kate, Stephen discusses the filmmaker on 9/11 who shut off his camera rather than film burning people and Goya's clamorous paintings of violence. " 'It's that argument he's having with himself, all the time, between the ethical problems of showing the atrocities and yet the need to say, "Look, this is what's happening." ' "

And, as ever, life goes on. Kate struggles with interpretations - of her massive Christ and of her own growing uneasiness with Peter as well as the drastic alteration Ben's death has made in her life. Justine, missing her first year at Cambridge because of an illness, bored and broken-hearted, is both more wary and more uninhibited with Stephen. Beth, trying to seem worldlier to her unfaithful husband, works a stressful job when she'd rather be home with her garden and her troubled son.

Barker's writing is simultaneously earthy and mysterious, lofty and mundane. Symbolism and mystery tantalize, while sex and weather and bickering move the plot through its paces. A fine, memorable novel.

One would expect with that set-up that the two characters would get together when he retires to his brother's cottage in the same small village, but that pat story-line thankfully does not pan out. They actually only meet a few times.

The theme of the book is the renewal and regeneration of these characters; one through her work and one through an affair with a much younger woman he knows he will never keep for good.

The strength of the book is the fine writing and the character development. The most interesting character, however, was a gardener, Peter, who worked as an assistant to the sculptress and wrote disturbing prose on the side. He was the only character with any tension or mystery.

The disappointing aspect of the book was that Peter was the only really interesting character. The others were likeable enough, but not gripping. There were some nice small insights into sculpture and experiences as a war correspondent in places like Bosnia. Unfortunately there was not enough tension or conflict among the main characters to really keep the readers interest at a high level. There were other characters brought in who never really enhanced the story.

Not a bad read, especially since the writing was so good. Unfortunately, the story-line lacked depth, tension, conflict or mystery.

On page 204, the reader is suddenly given Justine's point of view (she is Stephen's much younger lover). Her thoughts are ordinary and banal. Then we are admitted to the view of Justine's father, Alec, for just a few pages. All this in the service of explaining a story that would be better left subtly unexplained.

Why was the author so determined to explain everything? To make everything come out even, so to speak?

The book is neatly tied up in the last fifty pages and the reader is left believing everyone will live happily ever after, at least for the near future. I just didn't buy it.