The Bob Delusion
What if you met yourself and found out that all the bad things you feared about yourself might be true? But, hey, give yourself a break, too, because, actually, on second thought, you’re actually a pretty cool guy.
For absoiutely no reason under the sun other than it happens, on what is likely the single worst day of his life, the day on which his wife has requested the pleasure of his absence, Robert Duke Grayson Jr. meets himself.
He literally runs into himself, which is, of course, impossible. Certain that he’s lost his mind, he does the only sensible thing—run away. Except the other him, Bob, is in way better shape and catches him easily.
Robert, failed novelist, is 40 and falling apart. He’s balding and accumulating a gut. His job editing technical manuals for software looks like it might get cut. And now the love of his life has shown him the door. This is the last thing he needs. Or is it?
It takes a bit, but Robert begins to warm to the idea of having a real life doppelgänger, especially when, shortly after getting the news that he’s been “let go” from his marriage, Bob—accompanied by the lasciviously luscious Mia, happens across Ann, Robert’s soon-to-be ex-wife, and two of her closest friends, while they’re busy getting drunk in sympathy with Ann.
As it happens, Ann is, on that particular day, actually having second thoughts, and to her and to her friends, it seems as though Robert is taking the news of the separation and eventual dissolution of the marriage way better than he ought to be, and way better than Ann herself is. He’s suddenly trimmer, better dressed, and has a way better haircut. And he and the lasciviously luscious Mia look like they know each other pretty well.
This could get interesting, is what Robert thinks, because he isn’t the only one with a doppelgänger — indeed, there is another Ann, another Mia, and another Robbie, Robert and Ann’s eight-year-old son.
Interesting is perhaps in the eye of the beholder. It gets interesting, yes, but then it gets in fact way more weird than Robert could possibly have anticipated. When they decide to switch places, interesting could easily spiral out of control.
Robert’s therapist, or, more accurately, his narrative consultant, Charlie Burns, LCSW, discovers that “Bob” may not just be a literary invention that enables Robert to objectify himself. Burns may be the only person on earth who lovingly remembers Robert’s first novel, The _____.
But while he may be a true fan of Robert’s work, he may also be a lunatic who sees a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make history as a narrative therapist by doing the unthinkable and inserting himself into Robert’s narrative.
How did this happen, this multitude of doppelgängers? Perhaps it’s an adhesion in the multiverse, as best friend Leo says. Or perhaps it’s even weirder — perhaps it’s just a literary invention that enables the once-promising novelist to objectify himself, his wife, and his out-of-control life. Or a literary invention to evade circumstances so awful that Robert can’t bear to think of them in conventional terms. Or something else entirely.
What starts out as fun and interesting soon becomes frightening, especially when Robbie nearly drowns — or one of the Robbies — because they’ve decided to swap places, too.
By turns a metafictional screwball comedy and a coming-of-middle-age story, The Bob Delusion is a novel about the stories we tell ourselves that make us who we are. And it answers the fundamental question that humans have grappled with for the ages: If I’d done things differently, would I be different?
