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I Know You, Don’t I?
How well do we really know the people we have relationships with? How much do we tell them about our past? Would my version of my childhood bear any resemblance to my brother’s version of the same childhood? And what about my previous friendships and relationships? How much of the truth do I tell people today?
We all present a version of ourselves to the outside world. And that version of ourselves varies depending on who we’re with. The better we know people the more we reveal about ourselves.
Then there’s the version of ourselves we use on social media: the upbeat, happy, fulfilled version who has a perfect life that everyone else will envy.
But what if we had a chance to re-create our past, o give ourselves a new beginning, a brand new version of ourselves with a past free from mistakes and the sort of perfect present-day life we depict on social media?
My latest novel “I Know You, Don’t I?” tells the story of Carly Spurway, who is mistaken for an old schoolfriend, Caroline Westminster, a girl she remembers as perfect in every way, a pretty popular girl, the sort of girl who would have achieved everything she wanted in life with no mistakes along the way.
The inspiration for this book came from an incident that happened to me. I was sitting having coffee in a cafe one day when someone came up to me and said “I know you, don’t I? You’re Catherine, we were at school together.”
I told her she was mistaken but after she had gone I thought “How would it have been if I had said I was Catherine? I could have invented a whole new life for myself, I could have said I’d gone to university, travelled the world, anything…”
The idea of identity has always intrigued me, the theory of nature versus nurture: how much of our personalities are shaped by our upbringing and how much is in our genes.
This is a story of secrets, of family values, of loyalty and friendship and truths untold. But most of all it’s a book about self-discovery, of coming to terms with past mistakes and not envying someone else’s life because it may not be as perfect as you think it is.
Bethany Askew is the author of eight novels: The Time Before, The World Within, Out of Step, Counting the Days, Poppy's Seed, Three Extraordinary Years The Two Saras and I Know You, Don't I? She has also written a short story, The Night of the Storm, and she writes poetry. Two more women’s fiction books have been accepted for publication in 2020 and 2021 respectively and she is currently working on a new novel. In her spare time she enjoys reading, music, theatre, walking, Pilates, dancing and voluntary work. Bethany is married and lives in Somerset.