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 enlarge | Author: Chris Bohjalian
Publisher: Shaye Areheart Books
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy Used: $0.11
You Save: $24.89 (100%)
New (55) Used (102) Collectible (24) from $0.11
Avg. Customer Rating:  231 reviews
Sales Rank: 61766
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.7
ISBN: 1400047463
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781400047468
ASIN: 1400047463
Publication Date: February 13, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read -> Recycle -> Reuse!
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| Customer Reviews:
 In a Bind March 5, 2007
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
Trying to finish Chris Bohjalian's new novel, "The Double Bind," last weekend, really put me in a "bind." Do I keep reading this engrossing page-turner, or get out there and shovel the snow off the side porch, before it caves in?
No-brainer. The shovel stayed in the barn, I turned up the heat, made popcorn, and the dog and I settled in on the couch. After a few pages the outside world retreated, and the author's most entertaining novel to date, made my weekend an absolute joy. It is his 11th book, and I predict it will be his biggest seller, and his most popular. A great psychological thriller, a meditation on homelessness, random violence, reality and delusion, and what we leave, or think we leave, in the rippling waters of our past.
"The Double Bind," is based on a real person. Bob "Soupy" Campbell, a gifted photographer, who ended up on the streets and living at COTS, the homeless shelter in Burlington, Vermont. When he died in 2002, he left behind an intriguing box of black and white photographs, many of famous faces of the 1960s and '70s.
After viewing the photographs, and researching Campbell's life, Bohjalian moved on. A half-year later he reread F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," went for a long ride in the woods on his bike, and then the writer's juices started flowing, and the novel began.
In it, the heroine, Laurel Esterbrook is viciously attacked by two men in a van, while riding her bike on a lonely, Vermont dirt road. After her long recovery, she takes a job as a social worker at the Burlington homeless shelter. Her background in photography prompts the director of the shelter to give her a chance to become curator for a box of photos of celebrities left behind by the indigent Bobbie Crocker, who is based on the real life "Soupy" Campbell. Some photographs stir deep seeded memories of her own past on Long Island, involving characters like Jay Gatsby, and Daisy Buchanan, and the mystery deepens, as she races to find out more about Crocker, before those friends around her can stop her, fearing that her discoveries are endangering her physically and mentally.
"The Double Bind," climaxes with an ending that felt like a kick in the stomach. I never saw it coming, and it will leave the reader stunned.
So, readers, forget your chores, and grab this one quick. It will soon be the talk of the town, and flying out of the bookstores, and straight up the bestseller lists.
Now, I've got to go get the shovel. The snow awaits me.
Marvin Minkler - The North Star Monthly
 Just Okay! March 4, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book was pretty well written, but the story got to be so far out, that it was really past the point of forshadowing. I had hoped that this book would be more along the lines of Midwives, but sorry to say it fell short. That aside the authors imagination was at work with the story line, and there were some vary likable characters. I would recomend reading it, but maybe wait till it comes out in paperback.
Not that much of a surprise... March 3, 2007
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
I have read almost all of Bohjalian's books and have enjoyed them. This was not one of his best, however.
The book is well written and Bohjalian does a commendable job integrating the characters from THE GREAT GATSBY into it. The problem for me is that there seems to be a lot of effort put into the reading of the book with minimal payoff. What should be the "surprise" and the end of the book was obvious to me from very early on, and I was quite disappointed when I realized I was right all along.
This is a good book, but not a great one. Bohjalian has done better in the past.
 Kept Me Up Late March 1, 2007
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
I've read most of Mr. Bohjalian's books starting with Midwives but Double Bind left me with my mouth hanging open. I had resisted my usual pattern of peeking at the ending and I'm so glad I did. Now I'm going to go back and re-read the book, looking for clues, and then will lend it or recommend it to friends so that we can discuss it.
The ending literally kept me awake. I had stayed up late last night to finish the book and then every time I woke up during the night, my thoughts went back to the book. Another result... besides my sleepiness..is that now I have to pick up a copy of The Great Gatsby!
0bsessive Reading With Creative Twists February 28, 2007
38 out of 43 found this review helpful
Many years ago, I stayed up nights, enthralled by The Great Gatsby. Here, author Chris Bohjalian commandeers the Great Gatsby characters and breathes new life into them in this complex literary thriller.
The preface is heart-pounding: Laura Estabrook is attacked while riding her bicycle through Vermont's back roads. What really happened during that attack? I won't spoil it, but it's the catalyst for the rest of the novel, as Laura becomes obsessed with a former homeless patient with a history of mental illness and a box of photographs that may hold the key to her past.
I welcomed "old friends" into my life again -- Jay Gatsby, Daisy & Tom Buchanan, their daughter Pamela (now a dowager herself), George and Myrtle Wilson. They hold sway with the new characters brought to life by Chris Bohjalian.
There are as many twists and turns in this novel as there are on the Vermont bike roads that Laurel no longer travels. It's a psychological mystery story that kept me turning pages. Once started, the book becomes a compulsive page-turner; not perfect, but highly readable.
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