Sally Jenkins

As an author I found the premise to Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang intriguing:

A struggling writer, June Hayward, is friends with a bestselling author, Athena Liu. Athena dies in a freak accident while June and Athena are alone in Athena’s apartment. June spots Athena’s just-completed, latest manuscript and steals it. This paper copy is the only one in existence – despite this being the age of the internet, Athena works on an old typewriter.
June edits and tweaks the manuscript and then passes it off as completely her own work. Publication of the book causes social media uproar but not, at least initially, for the reasons you might expect.

Most of us writers have, at one time or another, felt some degree of envy at another’s success. But how many of us would be prepared to take the same action as June? Hardly any of us, I imagine (and hope!). That is what makes this book so compulsive – it tips us into somewhere we dare not tread.

Yellowface would make a great book club read (or it might be something you discuss within a writers’ group) because it encompasses so many issues. The following discussion prompts popped into my head as I was reading:

• Can/should an author create a character from a background of which they themselves have no experience, e.g. a different race, sexual orientation etc. ?
• What makes someone keep working towards their ambition despite numerous knockbacks?
• Does it matter if your family are ambivalent/disinterested in that ambition? 
• Would there ever be a circumstance in which the stealing of a manuscript was acceptable?
• Was Athena also a thief? Did she deserve to have her novel stolen?
• How would you feel if someone used part of your life story in a novel without asking permission? 
• Social media plays a large part in the book. Has it become too powerful?

If you’ve read Yellowface and would like to add to the list of issues it raises, please leave a comment in the box below.

On the subject of book clubs, a reader has told me that they have suggested Waiting for a Bright New Future as a possible read for their book group. If it gets through, I’ll be both intrigued and apprehensive to find out what they discuss and the verdict on the book!