The Double Bind

A Novel

By: Chris Bohjalian

Narrated by: Susan Denaker

As the New York Times has said, “Few writers can manipulate a plot with [Chris] Bohjalian’s grace and power.” Now he is back with an ambitious new novel that travels between Jay Gatsby’s Long Island and rural New England, between the Roaring Twenties and the twenty-first century.
When college sophomore 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 and begins to work 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 suddenly, Laurel discovers that before he was homeless, Bobbie Crocker was a successful photographer.
As Laurel’s fascination with Bobbie’s former life begins to merge into obsession, she becomes convinced that some of his photographs reveal a deeply hidden, dark family secret and falls into into a cat-and-mouse game with pursuers who claim they want to save her.
In this spellbinding literary thriller, rich with complex and compelling characters Chris Bohjalian takes listeners on his most intriguing, most haunting, and most unforgettable journey yet.

Aurora23

The writing was good. The story interesting. However, it read like an unfinished draft. It needed a it more connecting of the dots. Maybe 1 more chapter. I finished the book feeling unsatisfied. Too any questions, but not in a "food for thought manner", just unfinished..

Blah

I'm just bored. And I am not particularly enamoured of any of the characters, nor am I excited by the narrator, I'm just bored.

Didn't wow me

I listened to most of the book and then finally got hold of the hardcopy to speed it up. The plot reminds me of another psychological story I saw years ago. I felt played for a fool more with this story than I did that show. The protagonist splinters apart during the story and that is rather difficult to recognize. Somehow I don't remember this book as anything special. I f you really like the psychological details of some character than you might well like this alot. But me, I'd give it a pass.

dosapointing

I felt like I invested s lot when I got absorbed in the story and chayscyrrs that the endings twist ruined the book for me.

Great story about survival

It came across as a non- fiction until the end. I started to believe The Great Gatsby was a non- fiction book as well.