Border Crossing

Psychological thriller about a 10 year old boy convicted of murder and the testimony of a psychologist that was responsible for his life sentence. Through most of the book you don't know for sure if the boy was guilty of the crime or if the given testimony was overzealous. Good situation and subject matter for a fast page turner that becomes a little haunting toward the end.

Pat Barker has won many awards for her fiction & here it's easy to see why. It's the story of a psychiatrist who accidentally meets a young man he once evaluated...evaluated to say whether he could stand trial. The patient has grown up and wants to talk about his childhood. Meanwhile, the therapist's personal life is falling to pieces. American bestsellers in the genre of your choice are fun reads. Reading a book by an excellent storyteller and writer like Barker points up just how flimsy, vapid, and bland many of those NYT bestsellers are. She has an amazing facillity with language and story construction. Her World War 2 "Regeneration" trilogy won all the awards and got press (mostly in Britain) but try this page turner or "Blow Your House Down." I had to read the latter in one sitting!

Pat Barker makes writing seem so easy. Like Muriel Spark, her prose is always crisp, lucid, eloquent and smooth and for these qualities alone, it is always a pleasure to read anything by her. "Border Crossing (BC)", her latest novel, serves up cat and mouse styled mind games played between two protagonists with a shared past whose unlikely connection with each other is revealed after a shocking incident that will alter the course of their lives forever. Barker doesn't waste time setting the scene or building up tension. A distracted Tom Seymour, out on a jog with his wife one evening, witnesses a suicide attempt on the river. It takes him seconds to decide to dive after the man to prevent it. Why did Tom risk his life for a stranger ? Was he responding to the dangers of the moment or the pressures of a crumbling marriage ? This is the sort of question we ask ourselves as the story unfolds. Barker proves she's no novice at writing pyschological thrillers. She skillfully keeps us in a state of anxiety and suspense throughout. There's also a palpable smell of danger in the air and a threat of violence that never quite breaks out. As a thriller, BC works because it's highly absorbing and gripping. Pity the novel never quite develops beyond establishing whether or not Danny committed the murder he was convicted for. Or whether Danny is the master of deception those who comes into contact with him say he is. We do get definitive answers to these questions. We even get to observe and make our own judgements about the horror of society's response to juvenile crime and its aftermath. That Barker never used Danny to hold the mirror to his nemesis' soul and allowed us readers to truly get under Tom's skin is something of a disappointment. BC is a wonderfully accomplished novel. It could have been great one had Barker mined its premise for its full potential. I would give this four and a half stars rating if I could. If not, it's closer to five than four stars. One of the best novels to have been published in 2001.

This book reads like an awesome psychological journey! It brings you through so many emotions, and even after you finish reading it...The charcters stick with you.

A man who committed a murder when only a young boy (Danny) is released from prison and encounters the child psychologist (Tom) whose testimony was crucial in having him convicted. Their ongoing relationship and the events taking place in the child psychologists life form the basis for this novel. What is fascinating about it is the thought processes we hear running through Tom's head as he questions his own previous judgement, not just with Danny but also with Lauren (Tom's wife). Barker has very cleverly not tried to put us inside Danny's head (an altogether difficult exercise, surely?) but allowed us to experience Tom's confusion over the limited information that Danny allows himself to reveal. I was in doubt about how things would end right up to the final page. The author doesn't try to answer all the questions (which obviously proves frustrating for some reviewers), keeping the novel at a managable length, but raises enough to keep me thinking about the issues for a long time. Once I started reading I could hardly put it down.

This engaging and very readable novel explores the inner life of a psychologist, Tom Seymour. Tom is trying to cope with the possible break-up of his marriage when he is visited by a figure from his past, Danny Miller. More than a decade earlier, Tom testified in court that Danny understood the difference between right and wrong and therefore was fit to stand trial as an adult. In the electrifying opening chapter, Tom meets the adult Danny, and is subsequently forced to consider the extent to which he may have contributed to Danny's problems. The book explores themes including trust, betrayal, what we owe to other human beings, and the consequences of our actions. The title has multiple layers of meaning, but clearly one of the borders that fascinates Barker here, as it did in the _Regeneration_ trilogy, is the border between psychologist and patient. How much of a barrier should Tom draw between himself and Danny? What are the consequences if Danny crosses that border? Is there a danger in being too close to someone like Danny, even if one has the best of intentions? Finally, how different is Tom from Danny? Is there a little bit of cruelty in all children, all people?Although this novel touches on a hot button issue--children and punishment--it steadfastly resists plot cliches. Danny Miller is a complex, enigmatic, intelligent, untrustworthy, yet at times movingly vulnerable character. The novel is all the stronger for refusing to reduce him to the role of either victim or monster.