Absurdist Realism, Queerness, and Doppelgängers in ‘As If’: In Conversation with Isabel Waidner

Isabel Waidner, photographed by Suzie Howell

I have often wondered what I would do if I met my clone. How different would our lives be, when we would essentially be the same person? Would we be interchangeable, or are there things about myself and my life that are so unique that they couldn’t be replicated? What makes a person’s life theirs?Isabel Waidner tackles these questions with their distinctive brilliance in their newest novel ‘As If’. Two men (Korine and Lewis) meet once, briefly, and subsequently swap lives without the other man’s knowledge, albeit with varied results. Lewis, a retired actor, becomes a family man to the same family Korine had attempted to run away from, whilst Korine slots into Lewis’ life by pretending to be him in what’ll eventually be a successful audition. ‘As If’ is a story about performance, and wanting to live someone else’s seemingly ideal life in order to escape from the dreariness of your own. 

I’ve held Waidner’s novels particularly close to my heart since reading their fantastically bizarre ‘Sterling Karat Gold’ for the English module Critically Queer – it is a completely unique novel, and one whose delight and intrigue is, too, present in ‘As If’. A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to speak to Waidner about ‘As If’, a conversation which touched on the idea of a split reality, London as a literary setting, and whether a novel about two straight, married, cis men can actually be a queer narrative.

My first question might seem like an obvious one: what came first, the plot or the characters? The characters in As If are so essential to the plot, I can't imagine an abstract version of it where there's no Lewis and no Korine…

You're completely right. What came before – before even the characters – was the project of wanting to write a novel that is in some way shape or form, about loss, and that loss I was looking to capture was both personal, like what happened to both Korine and especially Lewis. He suffered a bereavement, but also the loss of his career, perspective, and any hope he might have had. I wanted to capture that sentiment somehow, in both content as well as form.

The reason for that was because I think that the feeling of loss for many of us, especially queer people and people of color as well, is something that defines this particular historical moment for me. Ten years ago, the political moment was all about resistance: we were all galvanized, we were making progress in terms of trans rights, in terms of Black Lives Matter, and so on and so forth. Now the opposite has happened, hasn't it? There was an initial progress, and now we've kind of regressed. This kind of collective loss is what I wanted to look at in this novel.

So that came first was the question, how do I write this particular historical moment? How do I write what has happened to us, collectively, from my point of view? How do I do this in a novel? And then came the characters, then I was like, okay, so this is about losing access to oneself, about losing a partner, too, in one case. This is about losing hope and perspective, and that's how the characters emerged. And then came the plot. You put these two, Lewis and Korine,  together in a room, and then off we go, the plot happens.

It's interesting, because I think that that sense of loss is really real to this novel, and particularly with the character of Kristie for both Korine and Lewis. It makes us think about the kinship models that these two men are interacting with, and how Lewis has this compromise with Laurie of we both know that I'm not who I say I am, but we have to keep pretending. I really was just fascinated by the character of Laurie, and Lewis's Laurie as well.

I completely agree. The kinship models are unusual, in a way, aren't they? Like the obsession of the two guys with each other is pretty extreme. Intent is interesting, arguably; the arrangement that Laurie has with Lewis is totally strange. Depressing, but also hilarious at the same time.

It is depressing, but she's doing it for the sake of her child, and it's kind of working for her in a way. 

The idea with Laurie is that the women in this novel, whilst they are relatively, and quite deliberately, absent, are the competent and intelligent characters. They are the ones who are calling the shots, whereas the men are floundering and scrambling to get themselves together.

You also get that with how Korine kind of navigates life on set with the women there being this point of reference. One of my questions was about Korine's infatuation with Lewis, because he has this obsession. I was wondering if there was ever any consideration of writing As If as having this romantic side to this infatuation, or whether it was just about obsessing over a person, without it being romantic?

It's really, it's, again, a really good question. I’ll come at it slightly left field, if I may.

Of course.

I'm known so far as writing really overtly queer literature, aren’t I? Like, as you say, Sterling Karat Gold is on your Critically Queer module. My project for at least the last four novels has been to really write outrageously queer novels, because I wanted to address an absence that I perceived when I started writing or when I started publishing around ten years ago. This novel, on the surface, isn't queer in the conventional way. We're looking at two supposedly straight white cis guys. 

But what I did quite deliberately, and what so far my queer readership has picked up on, like you, is that there are gay as well as trans subtexts in the book. So for example, this obsession of Korine with Lewis can be read as romantically charged. Or it can be read as two guys obsessing with each other, arguably at the expense of their wives. And the other way of reading it queer is obviously that I'm the writer, so the guys could be seen as sort of vessels for my own thoughts or for myself. In that sense it’s maybe more of a trans book. The point is, the novel offers a range of readings which could be queer, or straight. It’s up to the reader.

I did think of the potential of it as a trans book with the idea of this split identity, because throughout the whole book, you kind of start thinking: are they the same person? Particularly with the ending. So there is a big link to that, as a trans person, because you’re navigating your life and your relationships with people, whilst also wanting to mimic the ‘other’ life, and wanting to do that successfully. And I think that really comes across in As If.

That was the hope, you totally got it. I mean, obviously, yeah, that was sort of all in there, and deliberately so. And even the entire question of performance and selfhood is speaking to trans subject matter, isn't it? The idea that always, to some extent, we're performing for others or in relation to others… that can be read through a trans lens as well.

Regarding performance, I was really fascinated by the fact that it's a novel that is so invested into theater and performance in so many ways. And I was actually wondering, if you ever, in the writing process, considered writing it in a different form, like a play, or kind of thinking about what that would look like if, As If was a play?

It's really interesting. For me, it was always going to be a novel, but that's me. I'm a novelist, but I would love to see someone try it and make a play of it.

Korine and Lewis would be the same actor, or you would have to cast twins.

(Laughs) Good idea, actually. Or even like something for film or TV, whereby there are technologies on there where the same actor plays two roles. So I guess that would be the case. 

It would be interesting. But I also think that As If, as a novel, is really shaped by its style, because there are so many points in which you are so confused about whether or not the characters are happy living in the way that they are living. And I loved the perspective switches and how the same interactions were narrated so differently.

For instance, that first interaction between Korine and Jelly, which was actually Lewis. It was so interesting reading that scene from Korine's perspective, and then from Lewis's perspective, where he actually claims to have said something different than what Korine was telling us. And I was flipping back and forth, being like, who do I believe? And is it a combination of both? Is it neither? Because obviously, Lewis knows who he's interacting with, but Korine doesn't. It's already really difficult to do that in a novel, that's why it’s so brilliant, but I can’t imagine that on stage.

I also can’t imagine it on stage, but I think you also got at something else. There’s this sort of ambiguity that the novel performs, a sort of balancing act between: am I saying that they're the same, or am I saying they're separate? I think that would be harder to do on stage or film. Because if it were the same actor, then of course they are the same. Whereas the novel allows for ambiguity, even though it was also kind of difficult, this sort of balancing act of: how much do I make clear that they're potentially the same? Where are the overlaps? How many overlaps should there be in terms of backstory? How many overlaps in terms of how they look? So it was a balancing act, yeah, whereas obviously in film it’s instant. The director or writer declares their intent in the visual.

It's interesting as well, because I think with the start of the novel, there's so much almost magical realism about the way that the world is built. And I think that that's something that is really pertinent to all of your works. It exists in this kind of magical reality that is still real, where characters are kind of doing bizarre things, or living in an unconventional way, but still sometimes facing consequences.

Particularly with As If – I’m thinking of when Korine gets evicted – I found that moment really shocking, because obviously you don't expect it. I think that that's a really interesting way to bring us back to reality, and even further, be like, oh, okay, well, that means that Lewis is real, but does it? And I was just wondering, how do you find that balance between the reality of the government and the law and the state and whatnot, with these worlds that you're constructing?

The material, real realities of either being marginalised or being disadvantaged or struggling financially have been really crucial and fundamentally embedded in all of my novels, including As If, you're completely right. So okay, there might be a six legged Bambi in [Waidner’s 2023 novel] Corey Fah Does Social Mobility, but the fact is that the point that that book makes is that the main character struggles in the new kind of privileged context that they move around in, as a result of a prize win. The fundamental material realities of power, of money, of like you say, living situations, they're always completely realist in my books.

Someone mentioned the other day how, even in an early novel of mine called We Are Made of Diamond Stuff, at some point the protagonist is buying an electricity key, which is instantly a signpost that this character is living in a shitty flat, cause that's where we still might find electricity keys. It’s a way of topping up electricity, like a pay as you go, style of paying for one's electricity, which instantly puts them into a working class or financially disadvantaged demographic. The details are crucial to get right.

It’s interesting, because I think especially with class, it's an interesting question in As If, because when you read the first chapter from Lewis’ perspective, you interpret Korine as being maybe a homeless person, or someone who is really disadvantaged, but then when you get Korine's perspective, you find out he’s run away from his cookie cutter life, which I think adds to the bizarreness of it. Both men think that the other's life is better. It's very much, you know, the grass is greener on the other side.

Totally. That in a way, sums the novel up in a sentence!

Yeah! I guess, usually, with that sentiment, there is a sense of ‘be careful what you wish for’. But I think in As If both men are initially quite happy with the way that their other life is going, and then it's really interesting to see how that kind of crumbles, for example with Lewis really struggling to relate to Kristie and calling him Cyril.

(Laughs) Yeah!

(Laughs) I mean, that was amazing.

Thank you. Precisely, though. Lewis is trying to find his way in his new family, and is enjoying it, and, to begin with, enjoys the family life. However, then he realizes what he actually enjoys is the acting that is involved in pretending to be the other guy. He sort of, over time, realizes, okay, I thought I wanted a family and I kind of do, but it's not working. But what is working is pretending to be someone else, which is what I am. I'm an actor. So, in a way, he recovers some bits of the self that he lost, which is his sort of acting self.

I also wanted to ask about Jelly. I mean, I’m not even sure what to ask about Jelly…

In a way, Jelly is the straw that breaks the camel's back, because there's a third one! (Laughs) But, the third one is different in that he embodies some of the privileges that the other two don't have. So he's a nemesis to both of them, Korine more than Lewis, I guess. He's  a spanner in the works. I always like to throw in some sort of a complication for the characters that makes life even more difficult than it already was. That's the role [Jelly] performs.

Yeah. I really like that first interaction of Korine and Jelly in the cafe, because it heightens that unreality and that sense of stalking the other person in order to find out what they're like to their core. And it's interesting that Korine almost veers away from Lewis by getting this fascination with Jelly. It made me laugh, but also it was curious, because when the novel ends, Jelly has still taken over Lewis's role. And Lewis, Kristie, and Laurie are still going to Majorca, so… what's happening there?

Exactly.

My last question was regarding London. So many of your novels are set in London, and to me, I feel like they all are set in the same London, because there's that same unreality, that same interest in how people relate to one another. I was wondering what you think about that, and whether you would write a novel not about London?

My last three novels were all set in a version of London. The unrealities were slightly different, a little bit nuanced from one to the other. But you're right, they're all very specifically in real London, even though there's always sort of a defamiliarizing element built in. I have a really early novel called We Are Made of Diamond Stuff – the one featuring the electricity key mentioned earlier – and that is set on the Isle of Wight. So that's set somewhere completely different, where I don't live, but I've been there several times, and my partner is from down there. So I have written a novel not set in London, but from the perspective of a visitor, a stranger, and outsider, coming in.

London is my home, and has been my home for over thirty years, but I've done one other setting that I know well. 

Living in London, I was thinking about these places that you're writing about, and I was really visualizing them. It made everything feel so personal, which I think was done in quite a subtle way. You don’t have to know about London to read As If and to understand it, but I think that living in London makes you understand why the characters are doing all of this, and making these complicated, irrational, and maybe strange decisions.

Yeah, it is quite a London novel. It could not be set anywhere other than London.

‘As If’ by Isabel Waidner is out now, and available to buy both online and in bookstores.