Written earlier than her demise in 2019, and printed with the assistance of her daughter, Katherine Min’s The Fetishist permits Min to pour out one thing of herself that we’d in any other case have sadly missed. Darkly humorous, surprisingly poignant and typically startlingly vicious, The Fetishist is a superb novel from an creator we misplaced too quickly, and a sweeping but intimate assertion on the impacts of racism and sexism on Asian American ladies.
Kyoko is a Japanese American rock musician, whereas Alma is a Korean American cellist whose profession was sidelined by sickness. Both are tied irrevocably to Daniel, a white man and fellow musician whose pursuit of Asian ladies appears to have ruined each Alma’s life and the life of Kyoko’s late mom. Shifting between these three characters’ views, Min tells us the charming, hilariously twisted story of their intertwined lives, from a possible hit track and an notorious affair, to a kidnapping gone unsuitable.
Min’s prose is concurrently playful and highly effective. She crafts sentences which might be someway capable of comprise each breathless puns and stylish intonations on the which means of life. The Fetishist flies on the energy of her phrases, and that energy transfers into her characters. There’s not a easy narrative right here, no agency sense of proper and unsuitable that we will apply to each web page. Instead, these difficult, messy characters are lent heat and gravity in every phrase, every second. Kyoko, Alma and Daniel are all trying to find which means, all making an attempt to type via the regrets they carry and the sins they bear. They really feel entire, really feel human, and due to this fact are free to shock us.
While The Fetishist is many issues, shocking might be probably the most apt phrase to explain Min’s posthumous work. This remarkably intelligent, wickedly incisive little guide will hold you hanging on each phrase and go away you with questions you’ll ponder for days.
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