The Indecipherables

“Who do you think you are? Part Twilight Zone, part Mulholland Drive, Anne Hellman’s debut is a tantalizing detour into the uncanny.” —Stewart O’Nan, author of A Prayer for the Dying

A pair of identical twins reconnect on a road trip where they realize they’re being stalked—by themselves—in this unsettling, imaginative tribute to Hitchcock’s Psycho and Vertigo

Meet Ava and Brin, identical twins on a road trip down the Pacific Coast Highway, from San Francisco to Joshua Tree, in honor of their late mother. This is more than a pilgrimage—it’s a reunion after a year-long rift, after Ava almost died of a mysterious illness. From their first night on the road, the sisters encounter strangers who insist they’ve met them before—a waitress who is certain she served them a few days ago, a mechanic who shows Ava and Brin a picture of themselves driving a different car from earlier that day.

Ava and Brin realize that another pair of twins, seemingly identical to them in name and appearance, are stalking them. The cat-and-mouse game between the four identical women quickly devolves into something sinister and supernatural as the lines between them begin to blur. Doppelgängers, prophetic hallucinations, an unwavering fog—what do these shadow twins want? And what are Ava and Brin hiding?

The Indecipherables is a fever dream of a debut novel, a journey into the weird and uncanny, and an exploration of what horrors arise when we keep secrets from those we love—and from ourselves.