Book Description
A young woman who works transcribing recordings for a ghostwriter begins to feel as if she’s disappearing; meanwhile, two women who fall in love and move in together begin to resemble each other in this Hitchcockian literary thriller
Naomi and Laura meet by chance at a department store café when Naomi mistakenly takes Laura’s coat. Following this first meeting, they keep bumping into each other, eventually forming a romantic relationship with Laura quickly moving in with Naomi. Laura tells Naomi little about her background, and appears to have no real life outside of their relationship—no friends, no work—but Naomi, having previously felt lonely despite her busy life, is content having someone waiting for her at home. As time goes by, Laura starts to change her appearance to resemble Naomi, and soon begins to take her place in the world.
A parallel narrative follows a nameless woman working for a ghost writer, transcribing recordings of his clients recalling the events of their lives. Her weeks all look the same, and she moves in a predictable pattern between her home, the ghostwriter’s office, a café, a movie theatre, etc. After hearing something on a recording that appears to be addressed to her, however, she gets the sense that she is disappearing.
From Hanna Johansson, the critically acclaimed author of Antiquity, this alluring and propulsive thriller, explores deception and authenticity, obsession, and the uncanny.
Praise For This Book
"Hanna Johansson is Hitchcock-like . . . She puts her reader in a state of constant tension . . . Reading Body Double is like following a game of cups and balls with concentration, letting your eyes focus on the cup under which you think the ball is hiding . . . The dizzying uncertainty contributes to the strange atmosphere of a novel in which Hanna Johansson raises the stakes considerably and leads the reader into an intricately constructed hall of mirrors of exquisite prose." —Svenska Dagbladet"The first thing I want to do after finishing Hanna Johansson's second novel is to read it again . . . Body Double is not only a masterful novel in the footsteps of the film, it is a story about loneliness and about being created in someone else's eyes. But also about what remains in the absence of that person." —Aftonbladet
"An incredibly successful thriller in the spirit of Hitchcock . . . Stylistically, Johansson works with repetition, displacement, confusion, and resolution. A coat temporarily changes hands—and everything is thrown into turmoil. It is incredibly well done from beginning to end." —Göteborgs-Posten
"[Johansson] writes the eerie thriller atmosphere very skilfully and engagingly. Here, every little detail, however insignificant it may seem, sooner or later puts everything at stake. The novel is imbued with a film aesthetic, particularly nineties horror, but also with a Paul Austerian urban environment of oppressive claustrophobia and paranoia, together with a voyeurism derived from Hitchcock. Just like the characters in the novel, I as a reader am forced to look over my shoulder and question what is real." —Sydsvenskan
"It is skilfully executed, the kind of work of art that you admire from half a meter away and think I will never be that good. But it is precisely these images and moods that haunt me after reading. Not the people, and not the feelings. Because I know that real life is not that beautiful. It doesn't matter—I admire the text anyway. From a distance." —Expressen
"Body Double is a book about obsession—which you can easily become obsessed with . . . The novel's aesthetically pleasing world-building is at least as well-written as its thriller plot . . . Body Double is a novel for all of us who are obsessed: with the strangely uncanny, with beautiful things, and with obsession itself. Johansson shows great control and skilful craftsmanship—there is no doubt that she has done a very good job of following up her acclaimed debut." —Lundagård
