Having read Chris Bohjalian’s novels before, notably “Midwives” and “Before you Know Kindness,” I was prepared to expect Bohjalian’s characteristic suspense and surprising endings, and I was not disappointed.
The novel opens with a blunt description of the attack of a woman named Laurel while she was in college. It is described as a near rape, in which she escaped with only a broken collarbone and finger.
We follow Laurel through the rest of her life as she graduates college and gets a job at a homeless shelter. At the shelter, she meets Bobbie Crocker, a schizophrenic photographer who passes away, leaving his collection of photographs.
Laurel is determined to find out who Crocker was and to get his photos printed to have a showing in his honor. Laurel soon finds out that Crocker was the younger brother of Pamela Marshfield, and his parents were Daisy and Tom Buchanan.
Sound familiar? Yes, they are the characters of the (fictitious) work “The Great Gatsby,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which in Laurel’s mind is real. (I actually had to search “The Great Gatsby” to make sure it was indeed fictitious because Bohjalian’s insertion of the characters is so seamless and effortless…and yes, I have read “The Great Gatsby”.)
Laurel becomes more and more ‘obsessed’ with the photographs, eventually alienating herself from the important people in her life in order to track down ‘the truth.’ Finally her search leads her to believe that Crocker’s son was one of her attackers, and she visits the state prison to talk with him to determine the facts.
Bohjalian’s telling of this story makes it virtually impossible to realize what is truth and what is fiction in both Laurel’s mind and life. Usually I don’t like these kinds of novels, Bohjalian’s way of leading the reader makes it very difficult to actually realize that you don’t know what is true or what is untrue; I didn’t realize that what I had believed to be true was indeed untrue until the last 50ish pages of the book. This facet is what makes Bohjalian’s writing style so singular.
When asked why he chose to use “The Great Gatsby” instead of another novel, Bohjalian said, “Few novels have had the intellectual influence on our literary culture of ‘The Great Gatsby’, and fewer still have been as widely read.”
In addition, Bohjalian chose ‘The Great Gatsby’ because of its underlying themes: it is, “in part, about broken people, their lies and distortions: the lies we live consciously, and those we convince ourselves are mere embellishments upon a basic reality.”
This is certainly the main theme of “The Double Bind” and of the unexpected ending. I would suggest brushing up on “The Great Gatsby” before reading this novel, because it will add a layer of detail that I greatly appreciated while reading.