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The Double Bind (Vintage Contemporaries) | 
| Author: Chris Bohjalian
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  228 reviews
Sales Rank: 2137
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 1400031664
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781400031665
ASIN: 1400031664
Publication Date: February 12, 2008
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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
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
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 223 more reviews...
 Gatsby on the Rocks with a Twist September 25, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
After 24 years of reading and hundreds of books, I am still a sucker for the plot twist. All is not as it seems in this novel where "The Great Gatsby" treads lightly over that semi-permeable line between fiction and reality. Bohjalian is an incredibly talented writer, one who had me grasping at straws outside the realm of "willing suspension of disbelief," and convincing myself I knew what was true and what was going to happen.
Looking back, I cannot believe I fell for the misdirection, but it makes me want to reread the novel with a new perspective. I gave this reading four stars because for some reason the story did not pull me in until near the end, but a second reading might yield different results. I would recommend this novel, especially for lovers of Gatsby, but see it through to the final page because I assure you it's worth it!
Whose Reality is Real? September 22, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Author Chris Bohjalian subtley draws the reader into the world of the mentally ill in the masterfully crafted The Double Bind. The interweaving of characters, setting, and plot elements from F. Scott Fitzgerald's American classic The Great Gatsby both intrigue the reader and hint at the schizophrenic world which the main character Lauren is creating as she is forced to confront the trauma of a brutal attack in her past. Bohjalian's novel keeps the reader on edge, wondering himself what is real and what is imagined. At the same time Bohjalian's characters are a testament to the human will to survive, both physically and emotionally, in the most difficult of circumstances.
 Fabulous Read! September 22, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I absolutely LOVED this book. Our book club is full of diverse tastes and everyone raved about this book - and that has probably only happened about 3 or 4 times in 8 years. I enjoyed this so much I emailed my book club friends from the caribbean to let them know I had finished it ( I was a month behind) and how right they were that it was one of our better choices. Definitely pick it up!
Literary Suspense Plays Games with Your Mind September 19, 2008
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
From the opening pages, I was mesmerized by the story of Laurel Estabrook, a young woman who at the beginning of her sophomore year in college is brutally attacked while bicycling. The attack sends her into a dramatic downward spiraling, changing her in ways that concern her friends. She appears to pull herself together and after graduation begins working at a homeless shelter. It is there she encounters Bobbie Crocker, a homeless man, who apparently had been a world-class photographer at one point in his life but dies homeless and without any known family. Laurel becomes obsessed with a box of photographs he left behind and begins piecing together a story of what his life must have been like before he lost control of circumstances.
If you've read The Great Gatsby, you will be doubly intrigued as favorite characters from that novel play prominent parts in this one. Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Myrtle and George Wilson, Meyer Wolfsheim, and particularly the Buchanan daughter Pamela and Jay Gatsby himself all figure prominently in Laurel's story.
Chris Bohjalian has taken an intriguing premise, juxtaposing the life of a fragile woman alongside her obsession with a homeless man's former life. What he does for readers is extraordinary, giving us a true page-turner that delves into delusions and blurs fiction with reality so effortlessly, that we are stunned as we race toward the heart-stopping finale. From the nostalgic photographs peppered throughout to the psychiatric documentation that periodically jars the reader, this is a mesmerizing novel that will keep you up all night and have you pondering its shocking conclusion long after you have shut the book.
fact + fiction = AN INCREDIBLE READ September 1, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I do not know what I was expecting when I decided to purchase this book. I think maybe some interesting, non-standard chick-lit, altho the synopsis suggested a bit more of an adventure lurking within. Whatever compelled me, it did not disappoint. As a matter of fact, it exceeded my highest expectations.
Bohjalian is my new hero. He weaves a story the way only I can fantasize of putting one together - so well thought out, so explicitly planned. A definite challenge, for writer and reader both. Without being gritty, without being sinister, strictly using the mind alone, the reader embarks on a compelling journey of thought and deduction. The creativity is masterful, the dialog engaging, the manuevering impecible. I am floored! This story truly "had me at hello." From page 1 I was drawn in, suckered along just like Laurel (the main character). I was her biggest cheerleader, riding along side of her as she spiraled thru the tangled web of thoughts, ideas, compulsions that surrounded her mystery. I think, in the end, I actual was Laurel, as the dawn of light slowly spread thru my mind, along with hers, as I realized just what, exactly, had been going on...
This is the sort of book that does not leave after the last page is read. It lingers. It evokes new thoughts, new realizations, new ponderances. I have enjoyed this story more after I read it then I did while I read it. Which says a lot because it was 100% completely engaging while I read it.
It's a keeper and has a permanent spot on my bookshelf.
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