LOST's First Casualty Speaks, Sort Of, in Bad Twin

On May 13, season five of LOST came to a spectacular conclusion, leaving all of its devoted fans with about eight months stretching before us before we can get any real answers. An apparent Alternate Reality Game rooted in Twitter may drop a hint or two but probably will mostly serve to intensify speculation and confuse us even further. Before I found out about that, however, I planned another way of satiating my hunger for LOST. The prudent thing would have been to wait a month or two, thus drawing it out longer, but as one of the characters in LOST's fourth and most famous tie-in novel says, I'm not very prudent. At least when it comes to putting a leash on my obsessions.

Bad Twin is a novel written by one Laurence Shames, though his name never appears on the book. That's because the mystery is attributed to Oceanic 815 passenger Gary Troup, eventually revealed in an interview with head writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse to be the man who gets sucked into the airplane turbine in LOST's pilot episode. While he doesn't survive his first day on the Island, his manuscript does, becoming reading material for both Hurley and Sawyer before a temperamental Jack burns the last few pages. (Maybe, once he decided to return to the Island, Jack ought to have gotten his hands on a copy of the published book to present to Sawyer as a peace offering...)

Bad Twin is fundamentally different from the other tie-in novels because it is meta-fictional. As such, it doesn't concern the goings-on of the castaways, which works both for it and against it. Against it, because the main thing drawing me to the other novels was the opportunity to visit with familiar characters from the show. For it, because the main thing annoying me about the other novels, or two of them anyway, was how poorly those people were characterized. There are LOST connections in the novel, but most of them seem to function primarily as Easter eggs, aside from broader themes like redemption, family issues and good and evil that run throughout both the series and the book.

Small references include the Hanso Foundation, Paik Industries, Oceanic Airlines, John Locke (the philosopher, not the Island's wannabe king) and Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack. The passing reference to Cindy Chandler as a stewardess admired by the main character is significant mainly because Troup and Chandler were evidently an item, so she was written into the novel as a cameo. The book is dedicated to her as well, and the publisher's notes mention her. In her few appearances on the show, however, she has never mentioned the author at all, so it's not clear how canonical their relationship is. The numbers also turn up in a few places, particularly 8, 15 and 16, though all make an appearance at some point. The cover, in which the words of the title are etched into the sand on a beach with a stick, is also most likely a nod to the show.

The main connection is with the Widmore family. Paul Artisan, a detective with a deep-seated longing for truth, is hired to find a missing member of this dynasty and soon finds himself confused and endangered as his assumptions about his client and his relatives are challenged and his contacts keep turning up dead. These Widmores are Americans, but they have Scottish roots, and like Charles on the show, they are sailing enthusiasts, enjoy whisky and are filthy rich. Arthur is the patriarch, while his twin sons are Clifford (the client) and Alexander (the missing person). I'm not sure how much information about future developments Shames was given; Widmore Industries had been mentioned briefly on the show before, but Charles wasn't introduced as a character until the season two finale, which I'm pretty sure aired after this was published.

I don't know if Shames took what he thought was an extremely minor character and built his story about him or if we're supposed to think there's some kind of connection between the fictional Charles and the meta-fictional Arthur. I also wonder if other elements of the book, such as a brief retelling of the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau, are supposed to foreshadow later events in the show; I'm not certain how much of the show's overall arc was planned at this point, though, or if Shames was privy to this sort of information. If it was deliberate foreshadowing, the novel might just hold a clue to the sixth season. Most famously, this book seems to hold a clue as to the nature of the Island, as Gary Troup is an anagram for Purgatory, which is mentioned several times in the book. The writers have debunked the idea that the Island is literally Purgatory, though it seems silly to deny that it works very well on a figurative level.

LOST connections aside, however, is this an engaging story? I'm not really much of a mystery reader, though there are several detective shows I find enjoyable (most recently, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, co-starring LOST alum Dom Monaghan). It's always fun to see if I can solve the mystery before they do. (Usually I can't.) There are some interesting twists and turns in this book, and the characters are fairly interesting. The most compelling element of the mystery concerns the true nature of the twin brothers, which Paul is convinced he cannot begin to discern until he finds Arthur's prodigal son.

Paul is a likable enough fellow. When we first meet him, he's spending most of his time trying to prove people are cheating on their spouses or their insurance claims. It's rather seedy work, and it doesn't feel satisfying for him. He'd rather pursue mysteries that allow him to be a champion for those who need help. This sentence seems especially telling: "He believed - or desperately wanted to believe, which is nearly the same thing - that things made sense..." What a perfect description, too, of viewers of LOST! Paul feeds his hunger for meaning with deep conversations with his best friend, retired college professor Manny Weissman. Paul's affection for this sage mentor and for Argos, the dog whose custody they share, is perhaps his most endearing quality. Meanwhile, through Manny, the reader gets a less organic but still extensive series of literary and cultural references. The show just slips them in everywhere, whereas Manny hits readers over the head with them. It's a little clunky, but mostly it works.

Less endearing is Paul's tendency to have lascivious thoughts about every woman he encounters. He doesn't generally come across as a very lewd guy, but whenever he comes into contact with a woman, he stares at her chest or fantasizes about trysting with her. In one case, he follows through on his urges. This relationship, with an Aussie named Prudence, reminded me of a doomed relationship shown in LOST's fourth season, which didn't give me great hopes that they would have a promising future together, though I won't say whether my concerns were justified. I also wasn't crazy about the occasional dropping of "f-bombs"; if the show doesn't do it, I don't see why the tie-in novel needs to. It certainly doesn't add anything, especially since most of the strong profanity comes from Cliff, who I would think would keep a more professional tongue in meetings with a private investigator. Finally, there is a reference to an event occurring in November of 2004, two months after the crash of Oceanic 815.

Bad Twin is not the most riveting book I've ever read, and I only picked it up for the LOST connections. You're not likely to get too many great insights into the show by reading it, but it might encourage you to reconsider a few things, and it at the least you'll have fun scouring the pages for references to the show. It's not great literature, but it's considerably better than the tie-in novels Signs of Life and Endangered Species. If you're looking for a bit of LOST to get you through the hiatus, Bad Twin isn't a bad choice.