Double Trouble: 8 Books to Explore the Theme for Issue Four
“The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought and that of reality.”
~ Charlotte Brontë
It’s the submissions call-out I know you’ve all been waiting for - Issue Four of Aniko Press is ready for your words!
The theme for issue four is Double, which is an intriguing one. Ideas of double conjure duplicates, doppelgangers, mirrored lives and twinning. Double is a call to explore the duality of our lived and unlived selves in the many varied ways that duality can present itself.
As always, remember that engaging with the theme in unique and unexpected ways usually piques editors' interest. I find it can be helpful to push through the first few ideas that come to mind until you sink into the meatier ones - that’s where the real story hides.
There’s a tight window on this one, but plenty of opportunities to explore some juicy books to get those creative ideas flowing. Here’s a selection of shorter fiction reads that explore doubles and duality to help you on your way:
The Scapegoat by Daphne Du Maurier
You can’t go wrong with a good classic, and there are plenty of books to mine for this theme. Du Maurier delivers a perfect exploration of who we might be when given a chance to live as someone else. English John and French Jean meet at a train station by pure chance, finding their resemblance to one another beyond uncanny. They get to talking and drinking - before John drifts off, drunk. He awakes to find Jean has stolen his identity, and to claim it back; he must step into the Frenchman's shoes and track him down. But in doing so, John steps into a world of chaos and complexities - one he might struggle to step back out of.
Untold Day and Night by Bae Suah
I read this at the start of the year and still think about it often. The loose sense of falling out of life that the book fills you with is hard to shake. In a looping tale of parallel narratives, Kim Ayami finishes her final shift at the audio theatre she works at and heads out with her boss to find an uncertain friend. Told across one day and night, Kim’s unreliability as our narrator unfolds softly, and scenes repeatedly shift before the reader as we try to get to grips with who is who and where is where. A light fever dream of a read, this one sticks.
The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark
A creepy thrill ride of a novella that you can devour in a matter of hours, the sense of duality being played on here centres around ideas of first impressions - and how very wrong they can be. Lise is thin, neither good-looking nor bad-looking. One day she walks out of her office, acquires a flashy new outfit, adopts a girlier tone of voice, and heads to the airport. On the plane, she takes a seat between two men; one delighted by her company, the other deeply perturbed. We know what happens to Lise early on, but the journey to the ending offers a disturbing surprise. I like this one for the theme of ‘double’ as from the outset; we have the two halves of the story - we’re just waiting for Spark to smash them together. It’s a superb way to consider how the theme could factor into format as well as concept.
Consent by Annabel Lyons
There is a lot to unpack in this one, and lots to connect with the theme of double, not least that the story centres around two sets of sisters, one of whom are twins. But this is just one thread of duality Lyons builds her narrative around. Set in Vancouver, we’re introduced to Sara, the older sister to Mattie, born with an unnamed intellectual disorder, and Saskia and Jenny, identical twins. None of the sisters knows each other until a sequence of tragic accidents brings Sara and Saskia together - and they realise these accidents may not be as innocent as they seem.
Read our full review here.
The Double by José Saramago
What begins as a humorous, whimsical tale devolves into a darker exploration of identity and what makes a person in Saramago's classic tale of doppelgangers. Tertuliano Maximo Afonso is a history teacher, divorced, and depressed. A colleague suggests he watches a movie to help his mood, recommending one. Tertuliano doesn’t enjoy the film and heads to bed, only to be awakened in the night by the sound of his television. He discovers the film is replaying only this time; the actor is a younger version of himself. Against his own better judgment, Tertuliano hunts down his double, establishing the man's identity and, in doing so, unravelling his own.
Every Version of You by Grace Chan
Aside from meeting a real-life counterpart, what happens when we can duplicate our own consciousness? Chan explores the ethical and personal complexities of this in a not-too-distant future where humans spend most of their lives in virtual reality. Tao-Yi and her long-term boyfriend Navin are living in Melbourne CBD. Navin has lived with complex health for most of his life, so when the chance to transfer his consciousness into the virtual world becomes available, he readily leaps at the chance. Tao-Yi is less convinced, and the decision to live fully in her flesh and bones calls her to question what it really means to exist. A thrilling exploration of the role of technology impacts our sense of identity and how we might navigate this as individuals and as a society.
Read our full review here.
Exquisite Cadavers by Meena Kandasamy
I recently read this one and was blown away by it - it’s possibly one of the most uniquely crafted books I’ve read to date and a perfect way to explore this theme. Described as a “conversation between forms, fictions and truths”, Kandasamy offers us the fictional story of Karim and Maya, a young couple navigating their cultural identities in London, but in the margins, she shares her own inspirations behind the work - literally. There are the two stories told on the same page around one another. Both parts explore ideas of culture, living between the gaps of where you belong and where you land, and the choices many make between love and self, future and past. Dubbed a “literary hall of mirrors”, this experimental work is filled with inspiration to explore how the concept of ‘double’ could be interpreted and utilised in a very practical way.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
A master of exploring the duality of selves, Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Through the means of writing, the narrator - Little Dog - attempts to unearth the family history rooted in Vietnam that began long before he was born. In doing so, he seeks to become unstuck from between the disparate worlds he knows and open the door to parts of his life his mother does not know, building to a single, unforgettable reveal. Vuong’s writing is a powerful exploration of race, class and masculinity that walks the double-edged line of finding the power to tell our stories and overcoming the long-standing silence of not being heard embedded in his heritage.
Elaine Mead is a freelance writer and book reviewer, currently residing in nipaluna (Hobart), Tasmania. She is passionate about the ways we can use literature to learn from our experiences to become more authentic versions of ourselves and obsessed with showing you photos of her Dachshund puppy. You can find her online under www.wordswithelaine.com.
