Lookalikes

Veteran literary DJ and po-mo quote-bandit, Thomas Meinecke, gets his come-uppance in his latest book: the text swallows up the author whole and spits him out again as a character in his own novel.

You see them promenading up and down the Königsallee in the posh end of Düsseldorf: Josephine Baker, Serge Gainsbourg, Marlon Brando, Elvis Presley, Justin Timberlake, Shakira (and all the rest of them). These people are all lookalikes and their business is to make a profit from their physical resemblance to these big-name celebrities. They read books (not just about their idols) and study the films of the French New Wave in order to see how to cast the female body in an artistic light; they have affairs (sometimes with each other); the atmosphere is heavily charged, communication happens mostly via social media networks and in the end no-one is sure who’s who any more.

»The rhythm of the language pulls you forward, and like it or not you find yourself running after it, like a dog straining at the leash.« Elfriede Jelinek