Isabel Waidner’s latest novel, 'As If', follows the surreal intersection of two actors, Lewis and Korine, who share an uncanny resemblance and wives with the same name. After meeting in a Central London sublet, the pair decide to swap lives: the younger Korine takes over a high-stakes audition for the grieving Lewis, while Lewis assumes Korine’s domestic and financial burdens. Set against the brutalist backdrop of London’s Barbican and Golden Lane estate, the narrative uses this identity swap to explore the thin line between performance and reality.
Waidner utilizes the precarious nature of the British acting world to examine deeper existential themes of grief and circumstantial fate. By blurring the perspectives of the two protagonists, the book questions whether individuals have agency over their lives or if they are merely playing roles dictated by their environments. It serves as a poignant meditation on the loss of self that occurs when one becomes too entangled in the dreams and identities of others.