I first came across Isabel Waidner in 2017 – a playfully experimental German-British author, cultural theorist and University teacher - who disassembles fictional conventions as a way of disassembling racial, nationality, sexuality and class conventions in British society - when I was one of the judging panel for the 2018 Republic of Consciousness Prize – for which we shortlisted the author for their debut novel “Gaudy Bauble”, a novel which was an integral part of their PhD Thesis. Their second novel “We Are Made of Diamond Stuff” was shortlisted for both the Republic of Consciousness and Goldsmith Prizes, before their third “Sterling Karat Gold” (which made it three RoC shortlists and her first Orwell Prize shortlisting) won the Goldsmith Prize in 2021. That prize (with its normally distinctive trophy being awarded in a virtual ceremony) was then the jumping off spot for their fourth novel (and first with a major publisher) the Joe Orton meets Bambi mash-up “Corey Fah Does Social Mobility” (shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Memorial Award). And now this their fifth novel – due to be published in February 2026. The novel has (at least on the face of it) two alternating first party narrators (although each at times openly muses if the other really exists and the reader or is a projected alter ego – and the reader is invited to share and enjoy this ambiguity). Aubrey Lewis – a long time successful actor in a long running rather surreal detective show which “revolved around the premise of one slueth A. Smyth, who was hired to keep watch on another sleuth B. Smith who was in turn hired to keep watch on A Smythe” (Lewis playing Smythe’s frustrated partner C Schmidt) has fallen on hard times – his wife dead from cancer, his career ended as the show was cancelled. Now though he has been asked to appear at an audition for a potential spin-off for which he would be the star (one based on a novel “As If”) – something he is reluctant to do – instead walking out of his flat. Lindsay Korine – a very old distant school acquaintance turns up in his flat just ahead of the audition. Korine is homeless having walked out on his wife (who has just recovered from cancer) and child – and decides to take Lewis’s place at the rehearsal and to stay in his vacated flat. Meanwhile Lewis moves in with Korine’s wife and child. And both deal with the fear of discovery (while also realising many around them already know of their role playing) while suspecting the other of a staging some form of plot to ruin their own shot at a second chance For me the novel represents an interesting and evolution and maturing of their writing approach (the author in a dedication to me called it “enter[ing their] middle style”) Perhaps less experimental - although still way more unusual than even most literary fiction, this has similarities to “Audition” but with a more absurdist stance and the latter was the most experimental book on this year’s Booker. But very much stronger on empathy and the human condition - one moment in particular when a throw away remark about a cat causes an irretrievable breach in a marriage that has seemingly survived its strongest test almost took my breath away in admiration. Isabel Waidner is an author that deserves even wider recognition than they have already achieved – I would love to see them on the Booker longlist – and I really think this might be the book that achieves that – one which asks what it means in the 21st Century not just to act like, but to truly believe you have something to live for. Highly recommended.

This, my first taste of Waidner's fiction, is an odd and oddly charming little novel about two men who essentially swap lives - that is, assuming that both are real, and one isn't just a funhouse-mirror reflection of the other. But which would be which? One is Aubrey Lewis, whose wife Laurie has just died of throat cancer and whose high-profile on-stage breakdown early in his acting career led him to a safe, stagnant role as a detective's sidekick on seventeen seasons of a BBC stalwart. The other is Lindsey Korine, whose wife Laurie is in remission from throat cancer; he never pursued acting, initially for fear of mockery at school and later from an apparent lack of stick-to-it-ive-ness, and has bounced between jobs. The men live around the corner from one another. One night, after Korine has walked out on his family and taken to living in the Barbican underpass, he spots Lewis - whom he recognises as a school acquaintance, and to whom he bears some resemblance - and follows him home. From that encounter, Waidner spins a story of interleaving identities that would probably be reminiscent of Paul Auster, if I'd ever read any Auster. Korine goes for a last-ditch TV audition, pretending to be Lewis, and gets the gig; Lewis goes home to Korine's wife and child, and assumes the responsibilities of parenthood. As If (the title refers to the name of the TV project, which is based on a novel that, itself, is some kind of spinoff from Lewis's earlier show; it also pretty clearly gestures to the novel's themes of chance, risk, and, faintly, hope) is never so weird as to utterly defy possibility, but it certainly dances merrily along possibility's edge. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this, mostly down to Waidner's perfect tone, which contains just the right blend of humor and pathos. I'd definitely read their work again.