Customer Reviews
Double Bind 
2008-11-16
I was very satisfied with the condition of the book and the promptness in which it was received. I would definitely use this company again. Last time I gave them a very good review, but inadvertantly chose the wrong star. I hope this does not count against them because it was an excellent experience. Thanks MR
Such potential, but ultimately a rip-off 
2008-11-15
BEWARE OF "SPOILER" ... BUT THEN AGAIN, IT MAY SAVE YOU TIME. The 3 stars are for wrapping the actual photos of "Soupy" Campbell into the story. They're for the intriguing link with The Great Gatsby. They're for a compelling story with multiple layers of meaning. This could have been a great book earning 5 stars. Instead, however, it turns out that the author was dishonest with his readers. I feel insulted and cheated, robbed of my time and emotional investment in the book. There are literary devices that could have made this work. However, the author took the easy way out. As a result, upon completing the book, and, I would venture, even upon rereading it (although I haven't wasted my time), it is impossible to tell what was "real" and what was imagined by the main character. There are no dividing lines or hints such as narrator point of view or what characters were present in the scenes. The imaginary scenes turn out to have been so pervasive, that we are left without knowing what, if anything, was real. Maybe that's the point, so I give it these generous 3 stars. But I wish the author worked a little harder and demonstrated some integrity. I feel betrayed and robbed.
Excellent 2008-10-18
Read this book, and you may want to read it again. This story flows without a gap. If you skip ahead while you read this book, you will spoil it for yourself. While it is not what I would call a mystery, you will find yourself discovering clues for weeks after finishing the book.
Gatsby on the Rocks with a Twist 
2008-09-25
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? 2008-09-22
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! 2008-09-22
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.
Literary Suspense Plays Games with Your Mind 2008-09-19
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 2008-09-01
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.
Bohjalian's Best Yet 2008-09-01
I have read some really good books lately that I would recommend to people but none so much as The Double Bind, a novel by the man responsible for such bestsellers as Midwives and Before You Know Kindness. The Double Bind tells the tale of Laurel Estabrook and her survival and subsequent psychological trauma from an attempted rape in the sleepy town of Underhill, Vermont. A social worker for a homeless shelter called BEDS, Laurel focuses on her humanitarian efforts in order to forget the recurring nightmares of the assault. When a man named Bobbie Crocker who lived at the shelter dies, Laurel is given a project by her boss Katherine - restore some remarkable old photographs of Bobbie's and curate a show as a fundraiser for the shelter. Laurel's passion for photography has her delving deeper into the photos than she ever imagined, images of famous musicians, film stars and the legendary Jay Gatsby and the Buchanan family arousing her deepest curiosities. Believing Bobbie is the son of well-known socialites Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Laurel's sleuthing goes from mild inquisitiveness to full-blown obsession, alarming her friends and family. What she uncovers towards the end of her seemingly self-indulgent investigation will hit the reader like a ton of bricks, Bohjalian's purposeful and juicy twist on the plot making The Double Bind one of the most distinguished novels in American literature.
Bohjalian's writing is graceful, intelligent and engaging, pulling the reader in with eloquent prose and superb storytelling and keeping them hooked from beginning to end. He has crafted yet another intriguing tale, one that definitively captures the avid reader's interest with characters so thoroughly constructed that they are nearly made of flesh. He perseveres with his proclivity to bring minutiae to the forefront and though these details may seem inconsequential to some, it tickles me as a writer to see another writer bring the smaller things into the bigger picture, enhancing the mental perspective. Call it bringing HD to a standard transmission. Some lovely examples of this are his physical descriptions of people, such as a character named Reese:
"Reese was a heavyset man with wild eyebrows and wavy white hair, and a chin that slid without interruption into a neck the size of a log. He was wearing tinted eyeglasses and a crewneck sweater with an Oxford button-down shirt, and he was grinning at the camera in a manner that could only be called rakish." (pg. 178-179)
It even extends to delightful trivialities such as this:
"The woman nodded, and then rested a finger - the nail a near-perfect oval, the white at the tip a crisp sickle moon - on her chin." (pg. 247)
Bohjalian's original inspiration for his story came from a box of old photographs taken by real-life photographer Bob "Soupy" Campbell, a transient who died in a studio apartment and whose photos were provided to Bohjalian by Committee on Temporary Shelter in Burlington, Vermont. Campbell's photographs are prominently featured throughout the novel and Bohjalian even offers a website on which to view more of Campbell's exceptional work.
Bottom line: The Double Bind is a rapturous read to the last word and no doubt one of the best novels of 2007. I am fairly certain that his most recent novel (Skeletons At The Feast, which I have yet to read) either equals or transcends this magnificent piece of literary genius.
Read for bookclub---not my choice 
2008-08-23
I had a really hard time "getting into" this book. I must have started it 4 times before I finished it. I wouldn't have stayed with it, tho, if it had not been a local bookclub choice.
