Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
- Harper Audio, 2023
- Narrated by Helen Laser
Holy cow! This is my second book by R.F. Kuang (the first was Babel), and I’m blown away not only by her ability to write but also by her ability to think–and deeply–about the issues she’s asking readers to confront. In this satirical gem she takes on the publishing industry and all the various officious functionaries who inhabit it.
Writers June Hayward and Athena Liu seem poised to become the next darlings of the literary world. After graduating from Yale together, they continue to mingle among the same crowd. Hayward has published her first novel to moderate success, then quickly faded from sight. Liu’s novel, on the other hand, has received enormous acclaim, and she’s been declared a rising star as the authentic voice of the Chinese American experience.
After one literary event, Athena Liu invites June Hayward to her apartment for a glass of wine. Hayward can’t help but marvel at Liu’s sumptuous digs, much nicer than Hayward’s own small place. So this is what you can afford when you’ve written a bestseller, Hayward thinks. When Liu gets distracted, Hayward wanders around the apartment. In the bedroom she notices a stack of paper, with a formal title page on top, next to Liu’s signature typewriter, which she uses for all her manuscripts.
A few minutes later Hayward watches Liu suffer a bizarre accident. Unable to help, Hayward calls emergency services, who arrive several minutes after Liu has died. Those minutes give Hayward enough time to skim through Liu’s completed manuscript and recognize how good it is.
Much later, after the medics and the police have left Liu’s apartment, Hayward finally gets to go home. In her bag is the manuscript, which tells the story of previously unsung contributions of Chinese laborers in World War I.
And so begins the novel’s main storyline, as Hayward ponders what she should—and what she can—do with this potential blockbuster novel. It’s amusing, though not surprising, to witness Hayward’s convoluted and self-serving rationalization. Once she formulates a plan and sets it into motion, everyone along the line of the publishing process works to make the novel as successful as possible, from Hayward’s agent (who salivates over a sizable commission) to the publishing company’s editor (who suggests Hayward use her middle name, Song, in place of her last name in order to sound more Asian) to the PR representatives who publicize the book and its author to Asian organizations and readers.
Kuang pulls the plot along with her focus on Hayward, the first-person narrator of Yellowface. The book covers all the major controversies of publishing over the last several years: the overwhelming whiteness and maleness of authors, the question of who has the right to tell what stories, the lack of efforts to recruit and support more diverse writers. But it’s the focus on Hayward’s voice and her absolutely credible efforts to assuage her remnants of a conscience that carry the novel. Helen Laser, the narrator of the audiobook, was excellent at providing just the right inflections and emphases to Hayward’s thoughts.
As I was nearing the end of the audiobook, I wondered how Kuang was going to wrap up this story, which seemed to have hit all the relevant issues. But Kuang had one final issue left, one that’s not as obvious as all the others. I didn’t see it coming, yet it provided the perfect twist to end her novel.
© 2025 by Mary Daniels Brown
