Yellowface / R. F. Kuang / 2023
Yellowface took a brilliant and ambitious premise and squandered it soundly. The premise: June, a white woman and struggling writer, has Athena, an Asian acquaintance/friend and celebrated author die, in her presence and then steals her manuscript and publishes it under her own name. At its best, Yellowface could have been a thrilling and twisted psychological novel, plunging into the depths of the white mind and its traumas and neuroses. Literary examples of unlikeable or similarly unreliable and morally reprehensible characters abound from Humbert Humbert in Lolita by Nabokov to Stevens in Remains of the Day by Ishiguro. Kuang squanders her premise by 1) making this primarily a novel about writing, failing to give June any significant social or familial relationships or routine beyond the internet to provide her with any depth 2) making June pretty damn stupid. The former is just bad writing, giving an almost stream-of-consciousness style narration of the inanity in June’s head rather than taking us to scenes, where Kuang is most effective. The latter is just boring, especially considering when recent history provides a plethora of examples of ethnic studies professors, presidential candidates, and authors guilty of racial fraud who have contributed significantly to their fields and whose mental gymnastics and self-delusion is much more complicated and interesting territory. There were moments where June bemoaned her writer’s block and I wasn’t sure Kuang wasn’t channeling her own frustration in writing this novel. This book’s discussion of cancellation, suicidality, meritocracy, and racism in the publishing industry is so bungled that I think it will ultimately do more harm than good to our discourse.
I strongly agree with the critiques in withcindy here as well and recommend this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUdFkRdgPDU
1.5/5