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A Novel
by Isabel Waidner
Book Reviewed by:Two men meet in an apartment in London. They are strangers to one another, and yet they look remarkably alike.
Lewis is grieving his dead wife; Korine is hiding from his very-much-alive one. Lewis never had children; Korine has just walked out on his. Lewis is a retired actor whose career never amounted to much beyond a bit part on a B-list sitcom; Korine has always dreamed of acting.
Slowly and then all at once, each begins to live on the other's behalf. As Korine answers a casting call under Lewis's name, Lewis finds himself playing father to the other man's son. Each day the strange ruse becomes truer and stranger, more entrenched. Plunged into an existential game of cat-and-mouse, pursuit and retreat, they find that acting might make it possible to, finally, live.
Isabel Waidner's As If is a wily, propulsive, and unusually wise novel about what happens when we fall out of our roles and attempt to make new ones: a tale of thwarted expectation, renewed ambition, and the possibility of escape. It is the story of two men, or maybe one: a love story and a ghost story both.
1
I was in no state to meet anyone when Korine arrived. I sat on a chair in my sublet on Aldersgate Street, central London: an epic Hail Mary. Outside it was tipping down. It was mid to late May. Colder than it should have been for the time of year. Distended sash window to my right overlooking an alley, or to be exact, the external wall of the neighbouring building. Water was running down black brick. Splashing out of the gutter pipe. This was the moment Korine chose to put in an appearance, I judged him on that. He walked in through the front door like he owned the place. He was taller than me, and lankier, and that's saying something, given that I myself had a hard time maintaining my posture on my chair: hard-plastic shell, cracked red with other, bleaker tones, thought-up as if for people half my height. I corkscrewed my lower legs, it gave me no comfort. How could it: Korine positioned himself directly in front of me, leaving puddles on the floor: grey marbled linoleum tiling, ...
If it's not obvious from that plot description, this is an absurd story with a plot that defies belief—especially when a third unrelated doppelgänger appears. But Waidner's unusual novel is underpinned by a sense of wit and whimsy that makes the Kafkaesque dream-logic a joy to follow...continued
Full Review
(712 words)
(Reviewed by Jillian Bell).
Kristen Arnett, author of Stop Me If You've Heard This One
As If holds a multiplying and expanding universe, whose characters are both wonderfully strange and wickedly human. At once twisty and delicious, beautiful and imaginative, this is a book that will surprise you in the best way possible. Yiyun Li, author of Things in Nature Merely Grow
An audacious and enchanting novel, As If explores life's alternatives―fantasies and nightmares, encounters dreaded and desired, opportunities lost and gained―in an ingenious setting. We enter its world of doubles and mirror images with a thrill and leave with a deeper understanding of our own naked hearts.Isabel Waidner's novel As If focuses on two men who look uncannily like one another. Doppelgängers—unrelated people who look near-identical—have been a subject of fascination for centuries, and remain one today.
The word doppelgänger comes from German folklore, and translates to "double goer." It originally described an identical but invisible second self that all people were said to have had, a ghostly entity. These beings were sometimes believed to be the opposite of their human counterparts. Folklore said that if you met your doppelgänger, it was a sign that you would die soon. This became a popular trope in horror novels. A famous example of a doppelgänger appears in Fyodor Dostoyevsky&#...
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