PositiveLos Angeles Review of BooksHow do you write a novel about boredom without being boring? A Double Life chooses a reliable strategy: a narrator who is wiser and smarter than any of the characters comments sardonically on the threadbare opulence of Cecily’s life ... The other solution this novel offers lies in the most striking aspect of its design, that is, its formally innovative combination of prose and verse ... What sets A Double Life apart is how this interpolated poetry realizes the novel’s central conceit of a woman poet’s duality ... The novel extends no promise that either art or love can provide a lasting refuge or grant meaningful freedom. Instead, it offers just a hint of that other life, just enough, perhaps, to leave a lingering sense that there is something wrong with this one.
