"With this unsettling opener, the tone is set for a disquieting read, one that I found all the more uncanny as it overlaps so unnervingly with my own new book, Lean Cat, Savage Cat. Both books draw their protagonists from the lower rungs of showbiz, both utilise the language of fashion in deliberately off-putting ways, both bring the sybaritic myths of artistic life into direct conflict with the realities of housing insecurity and wage instability."
"From spyware as standard, to the conspiracy theorists who insist that Melania Trump has been replaced by an impersonator, we are in a deeply paranoid moment. I know I'm not alone in experiencing the creepy feeling that things aren't quite as they seem. Fittingly, the figure of the doppelganger stalks right across contemporary culture, through books, fashion and film."
"The double has haunted screens since the earliest days of cinema, appearing first in The Student of Prague (1913) and then in titles such as Rebecca, Vertigo and Black Swan. More recent horror films The Substance and Get Out have put a new spin on things, mining themes of identity and celebrity."
Isabel Waidner's novel As If opens with two strikingly similar strangers, Aubrey and Lindsey, meeting under mysterious circumstances, establishing an unsettling tone centered on doubling and identity confusion. The narrative explores how unprocessed grief fractures the psyche while examining the lives of characters from lower echelons of showbiz facing housing insecurity and wage instability. The doppelganger motif appears throughout contemporary culture, from cinema classics like Vertigo and Rebecca to modern horror films such as The Substance and Get Out. This prevalence reflects current cultural paranoia, evident in conspiracy theories and surveillance anxieties, suggesting widespread unease about whether reality is as it appears.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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