Doublestitch - Hardcover

Gardiner, John Rolfe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582432317 ISBN 13: 9781582432311

Publisher: Counterpoint, 2003

Synopsis

By the award-winning author of Somewhere in France, a historical novel based on a true story of orphaned identical twins born to switched identities, uncanny communications, and terrible trials. Identical twins Rebecca and Linda Carey arrive at Drayton Orphanage in 1926, aged ten. Copper-skinned and blond, beautiful but diffident, their perfectly matched faces, manners, and voices make them indistinguishable. Drayton is an institution of stone cottages and archaic values (chiseled into one wall is the phrase A Woman Should Please, That Is Her Happiness) that to them is nothing more than a fantasy land with no bearing on their eventual future. They plan on getting as far away as a dollar will send a post card.The world that awaits them on their release, however, proves infinitely more complex--and dangerous--than any of their imaginings. Rebecca heads for China, only to discover her intended guardian has less than noble intentions, while Linda endures a tramp's journey across the United States to California, only to find herself captive to a fanatic's vision. Separated at opposite ends of the world, the twins' shared willfulness and navet has led them to similar straits. As Wor

About this title

About the Author:

John Rolfe Gardiner is the author of four previous novels and two story collections. He is the winner of a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award. His stories frequently appear in The New Yorker. He lives in Middleburg, Virginia, with his wife and his daughter.

From Publishers Weekly:

Gardiner's subtly powerful writing deserves a wider audience, but his latest book fails to live up to his earlier achievements. While In the Heart of the Whole World and the well-received Somewhere in France were crisply written explorations of characters haunted by their obsessions, his fifth novel, about mixed-race twins growing up in an orphanage in the 1920s and '30s, has fewer flashes of grace. At age 10, Rebecca and Linda arrive at the Drayton Orphanage outside Philadelphia. With their odd beauty (faintly olive skin, hair "blond as a corn tassel") and troubling bond ("Sometimes I can't remember which one of us is me," one says), they quickly cast a spell over orphanage director Eula Keiland. The twins also attract the attention of Otto Rank (real-life psychoanalyst, a disciple and later critic of Freud), one of the novel's several historical figures. Otto believes that everyone has an internalized double, but in the twins' case, "nature has provided the double" and there is "no need for the subconscious to produce another." He's also certain that the twins will destroy each other, as the mythical Greek twins Lezzor and Tripto did. The twins' race plays a crucial role, and all of these elements promise something spellbinding. But while sometimes effective, the novel disappoints. The twins endure two separate, harrowing journeys (one to California, the other to China), but Gardiner relates these events flatly, and the idea of the "double" is tirelessly debated-by Eula, Otto and their associates-giving the metaphor-heavy novel a static, leaden feel.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Counterpoint
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1582432317
• ISBN 13: 9781582432311
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336