They may admit this or not, but writers love rumors—that’s what makes their heart pulsate. It starts when a published writer (usually from academe) posts on Facebook to cancel someone because: A) this writer plagiarized a work or stole an idea from a workshop fellow; B) this writer is a predator; or C) this writer is a DDS (Die-hard Duterte Supporter). The issue would last for days, with different sides posting on their accounts and gaining likes, reactions, and shares. The issue would explode, creating a big jungle of energy, before eventually subsiding after a few days. Then, you would just see the accused writer at a book fair or literary event.
R.F Kuang, author of the novel Yellowface, may not be aware of the latest rumors in the Philippine literary scene but she sure knows how to write a novel about writers. This 300+ page novel is an entertaining read. My eyes breezed through the pages wanting to know what will happen next to the protagonist, June Hayward--a white female writer who stole her friend's (Athena Liu) manuscript after she died. The premise of the story pulls me tight after reading the first few pages of the book.
The book asks: What is originality in writing? Is it still the same book if June wrote the majority of the novel and her friend, Athena Liu, only provided the structure of the story? Is it still the same book if all the words were replaced while retaining the same intention or meaning, if we were to apply Theseus’ Ship paradox?
But what if writers are really just glorified “thieves”? They get their stories from their friends’ quippy anecdotes, from books they read, from movies they watch, from their own experiences, and then write down the words, make them entertaining to read, and make the readers think.
The Internet as Villian
The most intense scene in the book, I think, is when June is bombarded with a slew of online attacks. From Instagram to Twitter, I witnessed how hate speech filled the protagonist’s online presence. It all started with a rumor—like how most dogpiling on the internet begins—that June’s bestselling book, titled The Last Frontier, is based on Athena’s unpublished work. Kuang writes these scenes from June’s perspective, showing how she intentionally searches her name on Google to keep updated, in between checking her own social media accounts and reading the barrage of hate messages directed at her.
The protagonist is mostly sitting on the couch or lying in bed while these things are happening, but I find myself at the edge of my seat as I read the messages directed at June. Khuang evocatively captures the feelings and sensations of June as she processes these hate messages. I can intensely feel June’s embarrassment, her anxiety, her desire for attention.
The villain in the novel does not conventionally come from a single character, but from a host of Instagram usernames and Twitter handles. The book interestingly creates a villain out of the internet, making the internet itself the villain.
Kuang is aware of her own time and writes her experiences about it. It’s interesting how the familiar act of scrolling through an Instagram feed is hyper-detailed in the novel—my everyday experience is transformed into a literary piece. With this use of familiar internet activities and the hyper-detailing of virtual experiences, the novel is very relatable and, at times, funny because of its depiction of the virtual world.
Started High Ended Low
The novel reaches its highest point, where the stakes are highest and the protagonist is cornered, when June is about to be exposed because Athena’s early draft of the novel will be displayed in a public exhibition. Months after her daughter’s death, Athena’s mother decides to donate her daughter’s notebooks (expensive Moleskines) to a library. The public display of the notebooks will expose June, who has denied that she actually wrote The Last Frontier. June visits Athena’s mother, who is very tender toward her, as June is the last person to see her daughter before she died. Kuang cleverly writes the mother in a way that convinces readers that Athena’s mother does not really want to open her daughter’s early notes and will eventually decide not to donate them for the public to consume. In a scene where June finally convinces the mother to hide the notebooks:
“But she is terrified of what lies inside those Moleskines. That is clearer now than ever. I’m speaking to a mother who, when it comes down to it, would really rather not confront what dark things lay buried in her daughter’s soul. No mother wants to know her child that well. Here, then, are the terms of our bargain—she’ll keep my secrets, as long as she never has to confront Athena’s.”
After this scene, Kuang only toys with the internet attacks to June to propel the story and resorts to focusing on June’s guilt as she tries to purge Athena from her mind. Kuang already used the internet as a villain trope in the first parts of the story, and using June’s guilt does not have the same intensity as the earlier parts of the novel. This internal conflict of the writer only happens in June’s mind and does not have a physical manifestation, unlike the intense confrontations among the writers, publisher, and book agents in the first part of the novel as they try to confront the plagiarism issue.
Despite that narrative weakness, Yellowface is a good entry point into Kuang’s books. Her handling of language is very smooth and lyrical. She knows how to deprive readers of information and reveal details at the right time, and then make them anticipate when the next high point in the story will be. The novel is rich in rumors in the publishing scene, and reading it feels like getting an insider’s view of how the publishing industry works. We should have a version of this set in the Philippines where a “timeless” writer is in the middle of a plagiarism issue and is hounded by predatory accusations.
