Mozart and Salieri for the Zoomer generation. Review of Rebecca Kuang’s novel “Yellowface”

The creator of the acclaimed trilogy “The Opium War” and the science fiction novel “Babylon” wrote a book in the thriller genre. Let’s try to figure out what’s so frightening about it.

June Hayward’s writing career is not going well: her debut novel did not become an event on the literary horizon and it seems to her that she will forever remain among the outsiders. Her friend Athena Law is the complete opposite of June. It seems that Athena was born to shine in the rays of glory. The circulation of her books sells like hot cakes, she is recognized on the streets and admired. The main character would give anything to change places with her.

June witnesses Athena’s death. The girl dies from suffocation after choking on food; the ambulance arrives too late. A young writer does the unthinkable. She steals the last manuscript of the deceased and passes the text off as her own.

The novel brings June everything she dreamed of: fame, wealth and huge circulation. A well-known film company initiates negotiations to buy the film rights. Many people find it suspicious that a white girl, after the death of her Asian friend, suddenly wrote a book about Chinese workers during the First World War. But June dismisses suspicions of plagiarism. She admits that communication with Athena certainly influenced the text and gave many ideas for the book, but the final manuscript is only her work. Social networks, having seethed, are calming down a little, the brewing scandal is fading away due to lack of evidence.

For a while, June thinks she got away with it. Posts from a strange account disrupt the calm rhythm of life of the newly minted star. The stranger claims that he is Athena and threatens to expose the heroine. And then there’s the face of the deceased, no no, and it will flash either at the seminar or at the autograph session. What is this? Somebody’s cruel prank? Or is Athena actually alive and plotting revenge?

Since the release of the novel “Identity Crisis” by Ben Elton, I cannot remember a relevant satirical statement addressed to the SJW audience (if you know other examples, write in the comments). And even there, to be honest, although the author is making fun of modern political discourse, it is as if he is trying to sit on two chairs. It’s as if Ben Elton himself is having a crisis of self-determination.

The heroine of “Yellowface” cannot be called a positive character. She is obsessed with fame and is ready to go over her head for the sake of her goal. The theft and forgery that she commits become only the first links in a series of dubious actions of June. And, if at first she does not evoke much sympathy, then by the second half of the book you begin to empathize with her. Her thirst for fame becomes a serious addiction, driving the girl crazy. Those who try to expose a fraudster do so not for noble purposes, but solely for the sake of their own selfish interests.

A cliched narrative novel with a white heterosexual villain as the main character disguises a topical statement against modern trends and cancel culture. Rebecca Kuang shows us that it is just as wrong to persecute a white author for writing about blacks as it is to persecute a black author for writing about whites. There is no cultural appropriation, reverse racism exists.

The novel is multi-layered, there is room for many themes in it. Here we talk about addiction to social networks, and about bullying on the Internet, and about the vile morals of the book industry, and about the fetishization of national color. I can’t recommend Yellowface for reading; the book turned out to be very unpleasant. The characters in it are small and nasty (precisely nasty, they don’t reach the level of nasty). They stew in their own juice, live by their own petty passions and assert themselves at the expense of those around them. At the same time, the intense plot and clever time skips at the climax make you read until the last page. It would look great as a Netflix series (if it didn’t deconstruct the ideology on which studios like Netflix are based).

Preview image:
Author: Fanzon
Source: eksmo.ru