Will Williams by Namwali Serpell
A Review by VJJ
In the modern retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's William Wilson by the author of The Old Drift, a young black man's paranoia escalates as he is followed, challenged, and terrorized by a doppelgänger bent on sabotaging his life.
Ever since high school, somebody's been playing the echo game on Will Williams. A look-alike with the same tattoos and the same name has been following him. Starting by implicating Will in petty crimes, and escalating to offenses with serious prison terms, he's undermined every attempt Will has made to get his life on track. Now, drifting from city to city, Will's doing everything in his power to outrun his shadow.
Review Notes
Audio Book Publication Year: 2019
An installment in a Series? No
Narrator (s): JD Jackson
A man struggles to outsmart, defeat and outrun his troublesome doppelgänger who gets them into a lot of trouble in a series of riveting events.
A clever retelling of Edgar Allen Poe’s original, Will Williams in this version is an young Black man who is plagued by his arrogant, troublesome doppelgänger who takes them down a dark path of sinister crimes. Will seeks understanding and clarity of how this illusive person is able to constantly elude him while continuously show up at the most opportunistic moments only to cause strife. This was an interesting conceptual story wonderfully retold by Namwali Serpell.
I thought this was a engrossing story displaying the trickery of the mind and how the rational realization of a person with a presumed Dissociative Identity Disorder mindset is trying to explain his internal psychotic self struggle to himself while making sense of it all. His actions, his behaviors, his thoughts and his words were his delusional reality that was very real to him and caused him to act on anything he perceived as a threat to protect himself. I found this an enthralling audiobook listening experience.
This audiobook was masterfully narrated by JD Jackson who put much depth and emotion into this character. A phenomenal performance that can easily be a one man theatrical performance on Broadway I’d pay to see.
Reading Recommendation? Yes
Rating: NORTH STAR RATING
Content Warnings? No.
