“When Lavinia dies, she will be thinking exactly of this night, and of the stars and of the sea. Louise will know this. She will be there.” These ominous lines are the first hint that something’s about to go very, very wrong in Tara Isabella Burton’s debut thriller Social Creature, which came out back in 2018. Lavinia and Louise clash together in this tale of obsession, toxic friendship, and the deadly allure of glitz and glamor, which I highly recommend to any reader who loves high stakes, flawed characters, and decadent depictions of New York City’s party scene.
Louise is a true starving artist. She dreams of being a published author, but these days she can barely summon the energy to write as she juggles multiple jobs and still barely earns enough to live paycheck to paycheck. Lavinia is a trust-fund kid playing at becoming the next great American novelist while living a glamorous life in Manhattan on her parents’ dime. When Louise gets pulled into Lavinia’s orbit, it’s like discovering a whole new world. Lavinia dresses Louise in her own extravagant clothes, drags her to wild parties filled with beautiful people, and introduces her to the elite circles of New York’s literati. But Lavinia’s attention can be fickle, and Louise worries about all she will lose if Lavinia decides to drop her and move on to someone else. Louise will do anything to keep hold of this taste of power, prestige, and luxury Lavinia has given her. Anything.
The first thing you should probably know about Louise is that she’s an unreliable narrator. It’s not so much that she lies to the reader but more that she deliberately leaves out pieces of information in order to create a very intentional image of herself. At the beginning of the novel, Louise is quite sympathetic—most of us can probably relate better to this broke woman at almost thirty who is terrified of “fucking everything up” than to the rich party folks who can rely on their family’s reputation or bank account to get them out of any and all trouble, who get infinite second chances. But Louise’s desperation has a dark side, one that gets more and more apparent as the book goes on. That’s about as much as I can say without spoiling the book, but I’ll just warn you: you shouldn’t trust Louise’s framing of events.
But the most Gothic element of this thriller is the way that it plays with doppelgangers, or doubles. Louise starts off the novel as quite the opposite of Lavinia: she is shy and self-conscious, doesn’t wear makeup or know how to pose for Instagram photos, and tends to be more of an observer than the center of attention. But the more time she spends with Lavinia, the more she remakes herself in Lavinia’s image—until they could nearly be twins. Already physically similar in appearance, she begins dyeing her hair the same color as Lavinia, doing her makeup the same way and borrowing Lavinia’s clothes. She knows Lavinia so intimately, she can imitate her mannerisms both in person and online. These similarities make it all too easy for Louise to step into Lavinia’s identity after her untimely death….
If you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself reluctantly rooting for Louise as she ruthlessly navigates her way through death and deceit. You can find Social Creature on shelves now in your favorite local retailer, or buy it online and support The Gothic Library in the process using this Bookshop.org affiliate link. If you’ve read it, let me know your thoughts in the comments!
If you want more doppelgängers-via-eventual-clothing-imitation, the Love Witch and Last Night In Soho both include this, though they are very minor points.