As an aspiring author of fiction, I can see where the protagonist was coming from in the recently published novel Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang.
Competition for publication is so keen in the literary world that some writers take short cuts. Australia has its share of writers who have engaged in literary fraud whether intentional or unintentional. Think of the Ern Malley poems of the 1940s, the Helen Demidenko affair in 1994 and the accusations of plagiarism by John Hughes in 2022. All three works were considered of sufficient merit to be longlisted or awarded major Australian literary prizes.
Yellowface is about the lengths an aspiring author might go to achieve literary success. June Haywood, a young writer who has published one work of fiction which sank without trace, is jealous of the superior writing, acclaim, and financial achievements of her former classmate and friend, Athena Liu. In the first chapter, in unusual circumstances, June acquires the completed draft of Athena’s latest novel.
The pacy first-person voice of June delivers much of the enjoyment of the novel. June always finds a way to allay any rare self-doubt. As her success grows and others question the source of her writing, June continues to believe that the months she spent editing Athena’s work effectively made the novel her own.
Especially in the first half, Yellowface is a joy of diverting satire. Through June’s experiences, R. F. Kuang lampoons the publishers and marketers of fiction. She delivers amusing vignettes on their attitudes to the slush pile, author talks at literary festivals, and how Hollywood agents option film rights.
In the literary world, cultural appropriation is a lively contemporary issue. The added twist in Yellowface is that June Haywood is white and Athena is Asian-American. The novel in question has Asian characters and themes. June thinks she has dealt with any issues of cultural appropriation by adopting the nom de plume of Juniper Song. The ignorance she shows about the Asian experience in the USA is astonishing.
I laughed most of the way through Yellowface and when I finished the novel, I recommended it to my writing friends. It’s always good to see the funny side of trying to get published.
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Yellowface by Rebecca F. Huang
HarperCollins Publishers, 2023, 319 pages
ISBN: 9780008600303