Sorry, I’m Not Myself Today

by June Pulliam

10/27/2006

Stahler, David Jr. Doppelganger. New York: Eos, 2006. 258 p.

The back jacket of this YA novel informs the reader that the doppelganger is one of those monsters that unlike the vampire, the zombie or the ghost, has had few established literary forms that would influence every subsequent writer’s perception of the creature:

There’s something you should know about doppelgangers. We’re killers. Of people, that is. We prey on your race—stalking you, watching your moves. The places you go, learning the patterns of your life. Then, when we think we’ve got it down, we find a nice quiet corner to strangle you in and take over. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. Sometimes things get a little messy.

Stahler’s doppelgangers aren’t our twins from a parallel universe, as is the case with the Marvel Zombies or even Eric Cartman’s “evil” double in an episode of South Park, nor are they alter egos in the way that Victor Frankenstein’s creature is his alter ego or Tyler Durden is the far more interesting double of the hapless narrator of Fight Club. Instead, they hearken back to their most original manifestations by German and Russian romanticists in that they are parasitic creatures (in this case shapeshifters), with no identity of their own beyond their very basic need to exist (and occasionally mate).

Stahler’s protagonist has no name, because doppelganger’s lack enough of a core identity to even require one. All we know of his true form is that it similar to those of his race—so amorphous and hideous that he cannot bear to look upon it. Before his mother turned him out to survive on his own, she demonstrated maternal caring by keeping him hidden from the world in a remote cabin, occasionally returning with gifts of food or even a puppy that he could strangle so he could practice his basic survival skills. On his own, the doppelganger must survive by killing someone, concealing the body, and assuming the form of his victim. This can be done for approximately three weeks before he can no longer maintain the illusion and must move on to another victim. While maintaining this form (the victim’s), the doppelganger assumes its life, taking cues from other humans for information about how to render a convincing performance of the person he has killed—while adding some nuances of his own.

The doppelganger’s first victim is a homeless alcoholic whom he kills with an impersonal yet gentle demeanor. After all, the doppelganger does not hate his victim. He only needs to assume a form for a while in order to survive, and this by necessity involves the death of the original. But the doppelganger cannot stay in this form for very long when he is “compelled” to switch it for another. Several drunken high school boys happen upon him in his homeless man form and taunt him. Chris Parker, the most sociopathic of the group, gives what he believes is a middle aged homeless man a beating, forcing the doppelganger to kill him in self defense. Then he assumes Chris’ form and buries the body.

It is in the form of Chris Parker that the doppelganger remains for the rest of the novel. Living as a homeless man wasn’t much of a challenge for the doppelganger since it didn’t require he imitate any complex family ties; all he had to do was learn how to panhandle and ride boxcars to different towns. But in Chris’ form, the doppelganger must learn how function within an extremely dysfunctional family.

Most fans of the horror genre understand how each type of monster represents a particular set of human anxieties. For example, ghosts are more than the spirits of the dead; they can also represent unconscious knowledge coming to the surface. Or the zombie embodies our fears of not having free will, or of the terrors of death. The doppelganger shows us ourselves as Other in that it might resemble us, but has qualities we would like to believe we lack. As personalized version of the Other, the doppelganger shows the original a repressed knowledge of the self.

This is how the doppelganger functions in Chris’s family, but Chris of course is not around to benefit from this knowledge since he is now buried in the woods. Chris as doppelganger meets his new family to discover an alcoholic father who lives vicariously through his son’s brutal football exploits and who brutalizes his wife and does unspeakable things to his pre-teen daughter. He soon learns that Chris Parker is viewed by the other teens in his community as the apex of adolescent masculinity. He is a gifted and handsome athlete whose prowess is rewarded. His skills on the gridiron will earn him a college scholarship in spite of a lack of intellectual abilities, and for now, he has the companionship of his female opposite number, a cheerleader named Amber. Both Chris’ and Amber’s seemingly glamorous positions in the firmament of high school social life have discouraged either to question their own dissatisfaction in these roles.

But the doppelganger Chris sees what the original could not, or would not—that his life is one of mindless brutality. Doppelganger Chris feels sickened when he does as instructed by his coach and tackles an opponent, only to hear the boy’s arm snap beneath him, and he finds he cannot mutely stand by while his father is abusing  his mother and sister either. And he needs to understand why Amber is not very enthusiastic about their relationship, and actually seems to be afraid of him. This is how things get “messy.” Original Chris might have seen these things as unremarkable, even acceptable, but doppelganger Chris cannot abide them and must do what he can to improve the situation. In doppelganger Chris’ response to the situation, we see another theme common to contemporary horror—a questioning of who is the real monster, the beings with the hideous forms or those who would scorn them.

And here I must get back to the material quoted on the back cover of the book. Readers who come to Doppelganger in search of gore will be bitterly disappointed.  But then again, this is a novel marketed to young adults, and currently, publishers’ imprints dedicated to this audience do not push the envelope on blood and violence. Doppelganger is an original take on the doppelganger tale as a variation on the young adult narrative. We have the basic adolescent protagonist who learns about his role in the world by taking a journey outside of his regular cultural milieu, putting him in a situation to question everything that he has been taught of as normal, which is a prerequisite to negotiating an identity within this world. Doppelganger Chris’ experience demonstrates to what degree all adolescents are doppelgangers.