Overview

A surreal thriller that blurs the lines between lies and truth, between the selves we conceal and the faces we show the world. As winter descends and the city fills with the scent of woodsmoke, a young transcriber follows the same routine each day. She collects tapes from a ghostwriter’s office, stops for an espresso and croissant, and returns home to type out the voices of strangers — stories that will become someone else’s novels. Her solitary life is predictable, unremarkable … until the day she hears something different on the tapes: a message meant only for her. Across the city, two women, Laura and Naomi, accidentally swap coats at a department store cafe. This brief encounter sparks something electric and strange, and soon, Laura has moved in with Naomi. As the days pass, she begins to mirror her more and more closely — her gestures, her habits, her very essence. Slowly, deliberately, Laura starts to take over Naomi’s life. Meanwhile, the transcriber makes a disturbing discovery: she is beginning to disappear …

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9781917189514

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Reviews

‘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 * Praise for Antiquity: ‘Elegantly translated … [Antiquity] sets up a literary conversation with works such as Death in Venice and Nabokov’s Lolita. Like those novels, plot is secondary to the meticulous creation of a predator’s interior landscape. And the narrator of Antiquity is as compelling a problem as Humbert Humbert or Aschenbach – as with them, power and responsibility are inverted and sublimated into diaphanous aesthetics, confronting the reader with pointed questions about the nature of beauty, and of art’s power to do harm.’ -- Cameron Woodhead * The Sydney Morning Herald * Praise for Antiquity: ‘Hanna Johansson writes with astonishing precision … her ability to articulate feeling and sensation, both mental and physical, is unmatched. … [Antiquity] takes you slowly through a summer, and, despite yourself, you will let your feet drag and fix your eyes on the fascinatingly terrible thing in front of you.’ * Readings * Praise for Antiquity: ‘A wonderful novel written with the menacing elegance of a cat burglar working in the shadows and at great heights.’ -- Catherine Lacey, author of <em>Biography of X</em>

‘Spare, poetic, and endlessly enticing, this windy tale of obsession had me hooked and spooked. Single White Female with a chicly bleak Scandinavian sensibility.’ -- Brittany Newell, author of <em>Soft Core</em> ‘A razor sharp novel of exquisite prose and uncanny tension, Body Double lures the unsuspecting reader into a sophisticated hall of mirrors where obsession blurs the lines between self and other. Bravo!’ -- Antoine Wilson, author of <em>Mouth to Mouth</em> ‘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 * Praise for Antiquity: ‘Elegantly translated … [Antiquity] sets up a literary conversation with works such as Death in Venice and Nabokov’s Lolita. Like those novels, plot is secondary to the meticulous creation of a predator’s interior landscape. And the narrator of Antiquity is as compelling a problem as Humbert Humbert or Aschenbach – as with them, power and responsibility are inverted and sublimated into diaphanous aesthetics, confronting the reader with pointed questions about the nature of beauty, and of art’s power to do harm.’ -- Cameron Woodhead * The Sydney Morning Herald * Praise for Antiquity: ‘Hanna Johansson writes with astonishing precision … her ability to articulate feeling and sensation, both mental and physical, is unmatched. … [Antiquity] takes you slowly through a summer, and, despite yourself, you will let your feet drag and fix your eyes on the fascinatingly terrible thing in front of you.’ * Readings * Praise for Antiquity: ‘A wonderful novel written with the menacing elegance of a cat burglar working in the shadows and at great heights.’ -- Catherine Lacey, author of <em>Biography of X</em>

Author Information

Hanna Johansson began her writing career as a critic and essayist covering topics like fashion, literature, art, and performance, and currently works as the art editor at the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. Her debut novel, Antiquity, was awarded the Katapultpriset Prize in 2021. Kira Josefsson is a writer and translator working between English and Swedish. She is the recipient of grants from the PEN/Heim Translation Fund and the Swedish Arts Council. She writes about the intersection of politics, literature, and identity for both Swedish- and English-language publications.

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