Yellowface

I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but I was able to pluck Rebecca Kuang's viral satire, Yellowface, off the shelf at the Athenaeum library; there are 87 people in the queue to borrow it from my local.

I raced through this novel, though parts of it were hard to read -- not because they were badly written, but because their forensic dissection of white guilt, overt and unconscious racism, and self-righteous self-justification were so painfully accurate and shameful. Don't get me wrong -- Yellowface is very funny as well as excruciating, not just about racism but also about the world of publishing (fortunately, as a children's author I have been spared the worst excesses of the publicity machine and the cycle of the Hot New Thing). I think I read almost this entire novel with a wince on my face.

Kuang's protagonist, June Hayward (known as Juniper Song after she steals her dead friend's manuscript and passes it off as her own), is monstrous, but she's also pitiful in her longing for admiration, validation and praise. I'm sure I'm not the only author to read this book and catch a glimpse of painful self-recognition in the character of June.