Body Double

Reviews / Votes

'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.' * Goeteborgs-Posten * 'Johansson's debut novel, Antiquity, was a slow burn, sensual, and troubling. Her follow-up - a thriller about two young women who spark up a suffocating romance after one accidentally takes the other's coat in a cafe - sounds a little like Single White Female, a little like Vertigo, and exactly like the queer doppelgaenger story I've been dying to read.' -- Jasmine Vojdani * Vulture * 'In the grand tradition of All About Eve and Mulholland Drive and 3 Women, Johansson's novel is a strange, twisty story about obsession and identity and how easy it can be to lose yourself completely.' -- McKayla Coyle * Literary Hub * 'Thrilling, seductive, and unsettling ... This lights-out, under-the-covers read delivers a captivating account of desire, obsession, and the ghosts within us.' * Booklist * 'Emerging from the fog of an endless Nordic winter comes Body Double by Hanna Johansson, a surreal, intimate portrait of women, and the women they observe to, and beyond, the point of obsession ... These vignettes rely on Johansson's masterful abilities as a short-story writer, painting richly detailed miniature portraits of characters ... This lush, introspective and slightly surreal novel would make for great book club discussions, especially for fans of The Coin and On the Calculation of Volume.' -- Tamuz Ellazam * Readings * 'Entrancing and eerie, Body Double pulses with atmosphere. Fans of filmmakers like Krzysztof Kieslowski (the 'Three Colours' trilogy) may recognise something like his films here. The gorgeously noirish narrative even makes reference to a lipstick, Veronique - a possible reference to Kieslowski's 1991 film The Double Life of Veronique ... Johansson's metaphysical thriller makes you question the limits of personhood and individuality. As she ratchets up the creepiness, you can't look away.' -- Declan Fry * ABC News * 'Johansson's obsession with detail combined with her refusal to spell everything (or really anything) out for us makes for an enjoyable undercurrent of creepiness and confusion.' -- Daisy Grant * New York Magazine * 'Dreamlike, uneasy, minimalist ... this book is one for readers who love to puzzle slowly over writing, who seek out their own meaning in a piece of fiction.' -- Parisa Hashempour * The Skinny * 'Nothing is what it seems. It's wonderfully disorienting. That's what it felt like reading Body Double by Hanna Johansson ... Enigmatic and unsettling.' -- Elisa Shoenberger * Chicago Review of Books * 'Closer to Ingmar Bergman's Persona than it is to, say, Single White Female, this is a disconcerting doppelganger novel that splinters into a dual tale of betrayal and uncertainty in romance and in literary art.' -- Cameron Woodhead * The Sydney Morning Herald * 'Thrilling, seductive, and unsettling ... This lights-out, under-the-covers read delivers a captivating account of desire, obsession, and the ghosts within us.' * Booklist * 'The book is written with marvelously cool composure ... readers may find the book seductively mysterious.' * Kirkus Reviews * 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>