Synopsis
A psychological novel about obsession from the New York Times bestselling author of Before you Know Kindness.
Based on a true story. Laurel works at a homeless shelter, where she meets a man named Bobbie Crocker. Only recently homeless, he has a history of mental illness and a box of photographs he won't let anyone see. When he dies suddenly, Laurel opens the box to discover that he was once a successful photographer for the rich and famous. As Laurel searches deeper into Bobbie's former life she finds that the photographs expose a deeply hidden family secret.
The Washington Post - Carrie Brown
The idea of the invented self hovers over Gatsby. Jay Gatsby, we remember, begins an unpromising life as James Gatz and is murdered for a crime he does not commit. Bohjalian, too, is interested in the gray area between hope and delusion, in how people are shaped by the events of their lives and the efforts they make to hold the self inviolable against fate and harm. As Nick Carraway concludes, the past is powerfully present in the future, and Laurel's investigations into Bobbie Crocker's life lead her inevitably into her own history. Some readers may reach the end and feel blindsided rather than enlightened, but The Double Bind describes just how circuitous that inescapable journey can be.