National Network for Equitable Library Service

Double Talk tells the story of Violet Budd and Brian (Baby) Power, two characters fleeing from their past. Brian is ambling after an immigrant’s dream, and Violet is desperate to ditch her middle class origins for something more earthy and bohemian. Their contrary social and geographical flight paths intersect in St. John’s, Newfoundland in the early 1980s, where, for a time, they find love, sex, and a safe haven in each other. No happy-ever-after story, Double Talk follows Violet and Brian over a fourteen-year period, starting at the end instead of the beginning, as the ordinary pressures of life bring to the surface the many differences that exist between them. Double Talk is a coming-of-age novel, a love story and an examination of social class and its mysterious codes.