Body Double

Johansson (Antiquity) explores themes of doppelgängers, loneliness, and selfhood in her sly latest. The dizzying hall-of-mirrors narrative unfolds on two tracks, beginning with an isolated and yearning woman named Naomi who meets an enchanting stranger named Laura after they mistakenly wind up with each other’s coats at a café. When they meet again at the same café, Laura confesses that their first meeting frightened her and that she’s seen Naomi around since then, suggesting Naomi might be her doppelgänger (“I have seen you.... Have you seen me?”). A parallel narrative follows an unnamed woman who lives alone and works as a transcriptionist for a ghostwriter. One day, she plays a client’s tape that is silent save for a woman’s whisper, “I have seen you. Have you seen me?” The transcriptionist takes the question to be directed at her, despite the fact that she’s “more invisible than the ghostwriter himself.” Shaken, she begins to feel like she’s “disappearing,” or is “split in two.” Johansson artfully teases out the echoes between the narrative threads, as Naomi and Laura see each other again and move in together and Laura unsettles Naomi by copying her clothing and hairstyle, even impersonating her on the phone. By the end, the two story lines seamlessly converge. Readers will be entranced. (Apr.)