Title: YELLOWFACE
Author: R.F. Kuang
Read: August 2023
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Book Description:
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu
were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in
publishing. But Athena's a cross-genre literary darling, and June didn't even
get a paperback release. Nobody wants stories about basic white girls, June
thinks.
So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse:
she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the
unsung contributions of Chinese laborers to the British and French war efforts
during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work?
So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete
with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve
to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York
Times bestseller list seems to agree.
But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens
to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her
secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she
deserves.
With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface takes on
questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation not only in the
publishing industry but the persistent erasure of Asian-American voices and
history by Western white society. R. F. Kuang's novel is timely, razor-sharp,
and eminently readable.
My musings:
Have you ever dreamed of writing your own novel? Of
sitting in some romantic café scribbling in your notebook and penning the next
bestseller. Of having your book grace the front window of bookshops worldwide.
After reading Kuang’s novel you may have a more sober perspective of the
publishing industry. I never thought it would be easy to be a published author,
but hadn’t imagined just how many minefields are lying in wait for any aspiring
writer, including the questions at the heart of YELLOWFACE: who owns a story? Who
is allowed to tell a story? Does your story have to mirror your own culture and
experiences?
YELLOWFACE was peppered with ethical
and moral dilemmas, and I fluctuated between empathy for June and horror at
what she was doing. Many reviewers have stated that June is a thoroughly
unlikeable character who is very obviously in the wrong, and many delighted in
her downfall. And yet I found Kuang has created a character who is both morally
reprehensible and also vulnerable, lonely and insecure. June always has
justification for her actions, and some were strangely compelling, like watching
a movie about a robbery and knowing it’s a crime, yet having some appreciation
for the planning and thought that had gone into it. Hard to explain … Things
got even more complex as Athena’s character was cast in a different light later
in the novel, blurring the lines further.
I was particularly intrigued by the issue
of cultural appropriation. Is a writer only allowed to write characters from
their own cultural backgrounds? Where are the boundaries? Can you write a
police novel or a medical thriller without ever having worked in those fields?
I am sure that everyone has an opinion on this, and I imagine it’s a hotly
debated issue, which made June’s justifications for her theft and reinvention all
the more interesting.
All in all, YELLOWFACE is a
brilliant, thought-provoking satire that delves into many of the issues
encountered in the publishing industry today. With intriguing characters and
many ethical questions, it made for fascinating reading from beginning to end.
Entertaining and scandalising in equal parts, YELLOWFACE is one of the most
original books I have read this year so far.
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