Waidner’s novel probes the extent to which life is circumstantial
This is a strange, fablelike tale of two men who are too similar to be different, yet too different to be the same. Perspectives oscillate, blur and bend between Lewis, a washed-up actor grieving his late wife, Laurie, and Korine, a hopeful actor who has been ground down by the pressures, monetary and emotional, of family life (Korine’s wife, it so happens, is also named Laurie). Each man, it transpires, appears to have what the other needs to fill his existential black hole. And so, when Korine arrives unannounced at Lewis’s Central London sublet, walking in ‘like he owned the place’ and proceeding to try on the former’s wardrobe, something shifts. Luckily, the two men bear an uncanny resemblance to each other, allowing them quite literally to swap roles: Korine fills in for a leading-role audition that Lewis can’t bear, while Lewis takes on Korine’s family duties. Becoming each other, they have the chance to live out ‘what could have been’ – though, of course, it is not that simple, and it all comes to a head in a rather abrupt ending.
Easily devoured and perpetually matter-of-fact in its tone, a strong sense of place (Central London) – the grey concrete of the Barbican underpass; the greasy spoon caff; the 1950s Golden Lane estate – is ultimately what grounds this rather surreal story, where oftentimes confusing shifts in viewpoints are cunningly disguised by Waidner’s straight, staccato prose. Indeed, disguise becomes both a narrative tool and a key theme, questioning the boundaries between personation and performance, and probing what happens when either of them is taken to extremes. Rather than being a straightforward commentary on the struggles of succeeding in the arts in modern-day Britain (Korine sleeps on the changing-room floor when he becomes homeless, while Lewis swiftly drains his savings to keep up with family demands), Waidner uses that backdrop to probe the extent to which life is circumstantial, and how it can be controlled. Ultimately, this is a story about grief: grief for the dreams you thought you wanted to pursue, for the person you thought you would become and for Laurie, whose life Lewis was so entangled in he lost all sense of self.
As If by by Isabel Waidner. Hamish Hamilton, £16.99 (hardcover)
From the March 2026 issue of ArtReview – get your copy.
