Doublestitch

By John Rolfe Gardiner and Annabeth Albert

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.

In 1926, Rebecca and Linda Carey arrive at a progressive orphanage outside of Philadelphia. They're identical twins, ten years old, copper skinned and beautiful, with perfectly matched faces and manners that doom them to a mischief of switched identities. Drayton Orphanage is a wealthy campus of fairy-tale stone cottages and modern education, but these girls are unimpressed. They want to get as far away as a dollar will send a post card. Implacably sharp-tongued, confident and aloof, they enthrall everyone at the orphanage but bridle under the attention, drawn only to each other.

While their guardians wage war with their own divided personalities, Becca and Linny battle for control of their twinned life. Locked in a paired world, they can't help themselves from switching names and clothes and tricking their teachers, house mothers, and peers. But when their black grandmother turns up unexpectedly, one twin imagines herself colored, the other white, and a painful rift grows between the two who had often before not known which one was which. When the apostate Freudian Otto Rank comes to Philadelphia and becomes interested in the twins, he and his prodigy (and lover) Anais Nin, see what no one else does--the twins are becoming dangerous to each other: We must all recognize the double who stalks us. Guilt is shifted to the shoulders of the double. Fear, too. In the end there may be paranoia, extreme mistrust. And if the other haunts relentlessly it must of course, in the end, be destroyed.

Far from blind to the threat they hold for each other, the twins live in a nightmare of broken mirrors. As they come of age, they choose to separate from each other as well as the stifling world of the Orphanage. But, when at age seventeen they finally do escape, one to China, the other to California, their lives, still parallel, turn horrific--their shared willfulness and naivete lead them to similar straits. Together and apart, each is caught in a struggle to survive the fate of the double.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1582432317
• ISBN13: 9781582432311
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Counterpoint LLC
• Length: 332 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Double Stitch Doubly Fascinating

I received the book as a gift and enjoyed it greatly. The personalities of the twins and the orphanage director were quite compelling. The book has three parts - the twins arrival at the orphanage, their departure, and their return. I especially enjoyed their departure. I sat up late into the night, unable to go to bed until I found out what would happen to Becca. This part put me in mind of some of the novels by Isabel Allende. I was a bit confused by the role of Anis Nin, and felt that Eula's sexual preferences were left somewhat unresolved. I felt that the details of depression-era America seemed quite accurate.

A Book of Many Layers

This book started out slowly from the view of an observer or analyst of every characters' behavior and motivations. Later on you become absorbed in the twins' separate but parallel journeys out into the world. The identical twins may not only pass as each other but pass as whites when necessary for their survival. The historical backdrop is crucial not only to the story of the twins' racial identities but also a contemplation of the shifting role of women. The mentally connected twins are able to live with the multiple identities that normally struggle to exist within one person. Other characters in the book wrestle with how to suppress or express their conflicting emotions and sexuality every day. The issue of the part of self that a woman surrenders when she marries is examined. The sisterhood of women and the complexities of those relationships are also explored. The book is something I revisit in my mind to try to sift through the many issues that are intertwined throughout the novel.

A note to the editor of this site

The Philadelphia Enquirer's Sunday book section gives "Double Stitch" prime position as "Ediitor's Choice" with a uniformly positive review; Francine Prose in O Magazine says "at once mysterious and plausible," in another favorable review; "Curled Up" gives Double Stitch a glowing review and calls it "riveting."Karen Joy Fowler's review says "I loved this book for its smartness and the sheer adventure of it. It's wonderful." The one negative review to date,the Publisher's Weekly is the one that leads your site's mention of this book. In fairness, I think you ought to lead with the prevailing opinions.