Pat Barker — Double Vision

Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2003 Hardback, 258pp. A gripping novel about the effects of violence on the journalists and artists who have dedicated themselves to representing it In the aftermath of September 11, reeling from the effects of reporting from New York City, two British journalists, a writer, Stephen Sharkey, and a photographer, Ben Frobisher, part ways. Stephen, facing the almost simultaneous discovery that his wife is having an affair, returns to England shattered; he divorces and quits his job. Ben returns to his vocation. He follows the war on terror to Afghanistan and is killed. Stephen retreats to a cottage in the country to write a book about violence, and what he sees as the reporting journalist's or photographer's complicity in it; it is a book that will build in large part on Ben's writing and photography. DJ; Owner's Name inside. (ISBN: 9780374209056). Good.