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| The Double Bind (Vintage Contemporaries) | 
 enlarge | Author: Chris A. Bohjalian
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Category: Book
List Price: £8.00
Buy New: £5.10
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 161038
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
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
Publication Date: February 12, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: New book. Due to problems with Standard Airmail delivery times from the USA, we have switched to using PRIORITY AIRMAIL ONLY. UK & European delivery is 7-10 days.
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| Customer Reviews:
 An intelligent psychological thriller ........ May 23, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Chris Bohjalian's novel Midwives has for a long time been one of my favourite books and I have since read Before You Know Kindness and enjoyed it immensely. However I came to The Double Bind with high expectations and having just finished it I am left feeling a little confused. The premise of the story is centered around Laurel Estabrook, a twenty plus social worker at BEDS, a Burlington homeless shelter. Laurel had in the past been the victim of a vicious sexual attack by two men whilst mountain bike riding in the Vermont Hills. Then Bobbie Crocker is brought to the shelter, all he has to his name is a box of old photographs, the purported output of his mentally troubled lifetime. These photographs are his pictorial "autobiography" and following his death the head of the shelter gives Laurel the task of cataloguing them with a view to an exhibition of his work to raise funds. The photographs are of a professional standard and show icons of the 50's and 60's such as Chuck Berry, Julie Andrews, Robert Frost and Eartha Kitt. The author uses the photographs of another real itinerant photographer to interleave the chapters and give added credence to the book.
The device of weaving classic fictional characters into a modern-day psychological thriller is now introduced into the story. Amongst the photographs are ones which Laurel recognises as being of Jay Gatsby's mansion in West Egg and the Buchanan estate in East Egg which at this point I found to be a difficult notion. Pragmatically I was reading the novel on one level as a piece of fiction and then the author introduces another set of well-known fictional characters which the reader is supposed to believe are living breathing characters in their own right. If you have not read the Great Gatsby recently it is a good idea to find out the story line as this will enhance your enjoyment of The Double Bind.
However I kept on reading and Chris Bohjalian manages to keep the pace and interest of the reader using this fictional deceit - and as Laurel's obsession with the photographer drags her even deeper into his troubled life her mental state starts to suffer dramatically. The author's ability to confuse reality and delusion is extremely well written and although the clues are there the end is a classic for a psychodrama.
The personal disenchantment which I mentioned earlier is down to the fact that having finished the book I cannot decide myself what and who were real and what and who delusional. Formulated in the 1950s to create a theory about schizophrenia, double bind theory is about relationships and what happens when important basic relationships are chronically subjected to invalidation through paradoxical communication which is the basic tenet of this book.
 Not a retelling - a superb repositioning April 11, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I'm not generally a fan of adaptations, but Bohjalian hits the perfect note with his repositioning of Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby". Weaving the classic novel The Great Gatsby into his story, Chris Bohjalian's latest, The Double Bind, begins with a violent assault. Young Laurel Estabrook isn't prepared for tragedy when it strikes her randomly, altering her life forever. Brutally attacked by two men while biking in the picaresque Vermont Countryside, Laurel only just survives being raped. Physically and emotionally scarred by the experience, Laurel gropes blindly through her days, trying to return to some kind of normality. She goes on to complete college, which eventually 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 clearly recognizable faces. There are famous people as well as jazz musicians, sculptors, and people playing chess in Washington Square. Laurel also notices there are more recent photos from the area in Vermont where she was attacked, including some of a dirt road and even 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-style tower owned by a bootlegger named Gatsby. In another photo, there's a young boy with his sister, who Laurel presumes is Bobby Crocker himself.
The questions remains: if Pamela did have a brother, how could he have wound up homeless and mentally ill in Vermont? As Laurel tries to make sense of the box of dingy pictures and of Bobby's life, her boss wants to give Bobbie what he deserves: an exhibition highlighting his photos, reminding the city that the homeless are people, too, and have talents and dreams and accomplishments.
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, on the photo of the girl on the bike, 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, however, just can't seem to help herself. She is gradually seduced by the secrets of the Buchanans and their ties to the Gatsby family, becoming increasingly paranoid when Pamela Buchanan expresses an interest in getting her hands on the photos.
Pamela is certain that Bobby's work is a deluded, malicious attempt to expose the Buchanan family secrets, and she has spent a not insubstantial part of her life trying to salvage her parents' reputation. She shudders when she imagines what sort of truth might be conjured from among her brother's old photos. Bohjalian masterfully unravels the mystery of how Bobby went from the mansion across from Laurel's childhood swim club to a dirt road to a homeless shelter in northern Vermont, while also perfectly capturing Laurel's obsession, vulnerability, and desperate need for reassurance as she tries to unlock the mystery of Bobby Crocker's photographic legacy.
This is a complex novel that not only exposes the inner workings of a defenseless young woman who finds herself in crisis. It also looks at the plight of the homeless and the terrible ramifications of schizophrenia on those whose lives, for whatever reason, have unravelled as they are tossed aside by society. The final revelations are indeed startling. Bobby Crocker certainly had his own devils, but nothing compares to what comes to haunt Laurel. She has been dogged for years by the repercussions of the attack ,and she finally understands that a forgiving memory is perhaps the only way to get by as her life becomes ever more deluded and distorted.
"Memory has a heavy backspin" March 31, 2007
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
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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