I think I’d be pretty hostile if I met my doppelganger – living proof of my mediocrity. My fragile ego even balks at being told I’m reminiscent of someone else. But, drawn as they are to the uncanny, authors just love doppelgangers. In As If, Isabel Waidner makes a playful contribution to the literary tradition, following in the footsteps of Dostoevsky, Kafka and Beckett. Waidner is the German-British author of four previous novels, including Sterling Karat Gold, which won the Goldsmiths Prize. They are non-binary, and known for experimental writing.
Many recent novels, such as Miranda July’s All Fours, imagine middle-aged women abandoning their lives, but lately the male midlife crisis, while going strong in society, has been somewhat neglected in fiction – until now. In As If, two near-identical men – equally unremarkable and adrift – are revitalised when they spontaneously swap lives.
Aubrey Lewis is a washed-up actor whose TV show was cancelled shortly after his wife Laurie’s death from cancer. Having ‘stepped into’ a tracksuit, both literally and metaphorically, he is perturbed when a lookalike, Lindsey Korine, barges into his dreary London sublet – yet both seize the opportunity to escape their reality. Lewis is later spotted by Korine’s wife, also called Laurie, who invites him home. Energised by the thrill of masquerading as Korine, Lewis embraces family life.
Meanwhile, Korine successfully auditions for As If, a spinoff from Lewis’s cancelled show. Posing as Lewis, he must put in a multilayered performance to dupe his doppelganger’s former colleagues and pull off the lead role. Inevitably, cracks emerge in both Lewis’s and Korine’s personas, and each becomes obsessed with their counterpart. They narrate the story in turn, in stream-of-consciousness monologues that immerse you in each man’s scattered, cantankerous mind, as if swimming through a minestrone of observations, both profound and inconsequential. ‘Well, hello. That’s me in the mirrored cabinet now. I’ve seen worse, I must say.’
The epigraph is from Beckett’s Molloy, a novel narrated by two characters who appear to be the same person. Given the similarities in looks, voice and background, Lewis and Korine also seem to be one person: two parallel life-paths, haunting each other. Korine has the family, Lewis the career opportunity, but neither values their lot.
As If is a surreal existential caper exploring identity and performance, midlife purpose and regret, and the difficulty of finding – and escaping – yourself. Sly, absurd and poignant, it is a triumph of narrative voice.
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