Double Blind

I was provided an ARC by FSG in exchange for an honest review, which can be found below.

I am a huge fan of Edward St. Aubyn, and I was ecstatic to receive an ARC of his latest book, Double Blind. I breezed through it pretty quickly, and there's a lot to love about it. St. Aubyn's prose is absolutely gorgeous, and while this one isn't as funny as Lost for Words he still imbues it with a healthy amount of wry wit. There were some elements I didn't like, such as the plot thread dealing with the “Happy Helmets,” which felt clumsy to me, as does a lot of contemporary fiction that tries to grapple with the tech industry. Overall, however, it was a highly enjoyable read and one I'd readily recommend.

Rather than placing a single person at the center of this novel, St. Aubyn gives equal attention to a smattering of characters, interacting in a smattering of locations. The diversity of its plot threads and settings, as well as its tone, reminded me of Jennifer's Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad or last year's The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel. Any novel with half a dozen significant characters sets itself up to be a relationship study, and Double Blind is no exception. The three characters at the center of the book, two old school friends, Lucy and Olivia, and Olivia's boyfriend, Francis, make up the central hub from which all of these connections radiate. These relationships are numerous and quite diverse (paternal, fraternal, romantic, collegial, etc.) but the novel never felt cluttered. Each of the characters is well crafted and fits perfectly into the narrative.

It is certainly the most expansive of St. Aubyn's works that I've read, but that was probably necessitated by the themes he chose to address. While the Patrick Melrose novels were a masterclass in suffering, the problems therein are largely human-inflicted: abuse, drugs, bankruptcy, infidelity. While all of these are present in Double Blind, they're presented against the backdrop of much, much bigger problems: climate change, capitalism, cancer, fate. And while I thought that centering problems like these would result in a pretty bleak novel, especially at the hands of a cynic like St. Aubyn, the result was surprisingly hopeful. Early in the book, he says of one of the characters learning of an impending extinction that “...the scale of the crisis invited a sense of impotence equal to his sense of horror.” The author is no optimist, but I think he believes that there's just as much grace in accepting your problems as in ending them, and knows that most people just try to do the best they can.