By Megan Thomas
It’s always so fun reading about something you know well, whether it’s a book about the city you live in where you yelp “I’VE BEEN THERE” every time the character passes a landmark or uses public transport, or where the character has the same job as you. For me, Yellowface represented the latter. This novel by RF Kuang is about the publishing industry and I found it fascinating to read for so many different reasons.
Have you watched the 2023 film American Fiction? Well, similar satirical themes that spotlight the messy quest for racial diversity in the publishing industry, yet it is differently and so cleverly executed. Flipping the narrative of cultural appropriation on its head, the Asian American author of Yellowface takes the voice of a white woman, June Hayward. When June’s Asian American friend Athena chokes to death in a drunken accident, June does everything she is supposed to in terms of alerting the authorities and retelling what she remembers… But not before stealing Athena’s latest manuscript about the plight of underappreciated Chinese labourers during World War I.
What’s so thrilling about this novel is that it is 100% from June’s perspective, whose skill (or rather, Kuang’s skill) for manipulation and reframing is comically good. We know what happened, and yet this dislikable, morally reprehensible character manages to drag us into her twisted logic and rationalisation. The instant success of the novel is proof that June saved the novel, right? The manuscript was unfinished, she did most of the work, right? Is this not basically just how collaboration works? Is it June’s fault that so many people wrongly assumed she was a person of colour? It’s not like she pretended, right? Right? Right? Not really, but June has a compelling way of telling us about it.
Exploring the gritty, unfair, complex elements that come with being gatekeepers of literary voices, the message of Yellowface is somehow delicately accomplished while also being loud, outrageous and funny. Throw in the cripplingly terrifying world of social media lynch mobs and you’ve got an epic tale of modern life.
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