Most unusual book I’ve read in a
while. I’ve never read a book where a doppelganger has been the protagonist;
well I’d have trouble recalling a book that featured a doppelganger at any
point.
At first he doesn’t have a name and for a while when he assumes the form
of Chris Parker he goes by that name, but towards the end his girlfriend Amber
gives him his own name, Gabriel. Even after reading over two hundred pages of
him living as Chris, I feel that Gabriel suits him better.
This story had many parallels to
Macbeth, a point I need to make since the book mentioned it a dozen or so
times. Gabriel likens himself to Macbeth, who just like him is a killer
although neither of them have the stomach for it. He compares the scene in the
play where Lady Macbeth listens as Macbeth plans to kill Banquo and does
nothing to hinder him, to the Parker home. The father Barry frequently beats
Echo, Chris’s sister and neither the mom nor Chris interferes. This bothers
Gabriel on a deep level and this is where we see him change.
If I were asked to describe him
in one word, I would choose pacifist. He is not a violent creature by any
means. In the prologue, which was what hooked me to the book, we see that he
can barely stand to kill a cricket and later when it comes time to murder a
human; it has to be either an act of mercy or self-defense for him to stomach
it.
By the end of the book, I think
he is more capable of killing and perhaps more at ease with his own nature but
I don’t feel that this is the end of his story. He is still largely a pacifist
and he has a challenging road ahead of him.
Not sure that I would read this
book again but by no means would I toss it in the rubbish pile.
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