The Body Double

This is the book your mother warned you about. -Eve Babitz Emily Beyda spins gorgeous prose around the black hole at the center of The Body Double. An existential thriller that vibrates at the uncanny pitch where screaming might be laughter, and a haunting portrait of a young woman as she disappears into the sinkhole of the camera. The Narcissus-funhouse of Hollywood, the moonlit windows of Los Angeles, the two-way mirror of consciousness--Beyda arrows directly for the crack in the glass. -Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! The Body Double is a deft, dark, and surprisingly unusual Hollywood story, cinematic in both substance and in style. Beyda's confident debut is both assured and unsettling. It's a noir, sure, but so much more--a tale for our times about the dangers of artifice, identity, and fame. -Ivy Pochoda, author of Wonder Valley and Visitation Street Compelling and provocative and fiercely intelligent. Emily Beyda's writing is a thrill. -Jennifer duBois, author of Cartwheel and The Spectators The Body Double is an epic read and Emily Beyda is a thrilling writer. Fame, beauty, youth, and artifice have rarely been mined for such narrative gold. Fantastic in every sense of the word. --Elisa Albert, author of After Birth Eerie... Beyda favors a slow-burning, deliberate pace, but her psychological thriller weaves a shroud of menace and anxiety. This auspicious debut will get under the reader's skin and stay there. -Publisher's Weekly