June’s Book Club pick is I’m a Fan by Sheena Patel. It’s a sharp, unsettling, often funny and brilliant debut that’s garnered a lot of richly deserved attention.
The unnamed narrator, let’s call her X, is obsessive, with a distinctive voice that’s at once intimate and confrontational. She is Pepysian in her honesty, has no filter whatsoever, certainly not with the reader, and often not with her fellow characters. The prose is urgent, fragmented, and often segues into rants about art, politics, race and identity. X is filled with rage about these things, furious that she is ‘carrying the burden of history.’
X has a boyfriend, who loves her and treats her well, yet she is abusive and cruel, cheating on him and treating him like a dishrag. She has two all-consuming obsessions: The Woman I’m Obsessed With, (let’s call her TWIOW), a rich social media influencer who is riding on the coat tails of her famous father, and The Man I Want To Be With (let’s call him TMIWTBW). TMIWTBW is involved with both women, as well as a number of others. In fact, he’s emotionally stunted, sexually incontinent and vain.
X is difficult character, but it’s hard not to sympathise with her as she’s so starkly honest. She also evokes pity, even though much of her suffering is self-inflicted.
The book is short and pretty brutal, but it’s full of razor sharp descriptions, and it also includes several laugh out loud moments (huge thanks to the author for these – there are not enough of them in fiction.) There are several discourses on art in the book, referencing artists such as Martine Syms and Abbas Zahedi, amongst others. There’s a hilarious passage where X’s boyfriend takes her to a Paul Klee exhibition where she behaves appallingly, as she doesn’t understand the art and it makes her feel stupid.
I asked a number of questions, and invited Sheena Patel to answer the ones she was comfortable with, and to include questions she may have wished to be asked. As she mentions in her response, some of the questions certainly stepped into deeply personal territory, given the novel’s raw, autofictional feel.
Here’s her response:
“Some of those felt v personal – I answered these ones:
• What prompted you to write this book? I needed something to do in lockdown and Nina Herve the publisher at Rough Trade Books encouraged me to do it. I was noticing patterns and putting them together.
• The style is so distinctive. How did you find this voice? Did it come to you immediately, or did it evolve over drafts? It was there and it evolved but also the style isn’t that distinctive. there’s lots of books that are written in a fragmentary style.
• Were there any books, writers, or other media that helped shape your approach to telling this story? Yes all the books I’ve ever read. Rebecca, Minor Feelings, Hanif Kureishi.
• Social media fuels your narrative; it would not be possible for X to feed her obsessions quite so feverishly without it. Has social media turned us all into quietly seething envious voyeurs? How do you think digital culture has changed the way we experience desire, jealousy and self-worth? I don’t think you need me to answer this, it’s evident in our everyday lives. It’s very hard to be offline.
• X is full of spiralling thoughts which are, on the whole, pretty toxic. Is she deranged, or is this a logical reaction to how she’s treated and how she views herself? I think what you think of her reveals what you think of yourself.
• In a book where identity is so central, none of your characters have names. Why did you make this choice? I didn’t make that choice. It just happened.”
There are plenty of limitations in a Q&A; it’s nowhere near as satisfactory as a naturally unfolding conversation. The novel invites difficult questions, and my intention was to engage critically with the author about some of the deeply nuanced themes featured in the book. Some of the questions I asked were undoubtedly uncomfortable, much like the book itself. I had hoped for more dialogue, but perhaps this tension between reader and author is inevitable for a novel that defies easy interpretation.
Here’s a question for anyone reading this post: When a novel features thorny issues such as power, race, identity and female desire, doesn’t an author have some kind of responsibility to defend their position? I don’t mean in the face of hostility, which is plain bad manners, but in response to thoughtful questioning? Isn’t that part of the deal when an author enters the public arena? On the other hand, shouldn’t the text speak for itself? Why should an author have to defend or explain anything? I’d love to hear your responses.
Whatever your views, the book is a great thought-provoking read and I can highly recommend it.
Sheena Patel’s I’m A Fan
June’s Book Club pick is I’m a Fan by Sheena Patel. It’s a sharp, unsettling, often funny and brilliant debut that’s garnered a lot of richly deserved attention.
The unnamed narrator, let’s call her X, is obsessive, with a distinctive voice that’s at once intimate and confrontational. She is Pepysian in her honesty, has no filter whatsoever, certainly not with the reader, and often not with her fellow characters. The prose is urgent, fragmented, and often segues into rants about art, politics, race and identity. X is filled with rage about these things, furious that she is ‘carrying the burden of history.’
X has a boyfriend, who loves her and treats her well, yet she is abusive and cruel, cheating on him and treating him like a dishrag. She has two all-consuming obsessions: The Woman I’m Obsessed With, (let’s call her TWIOW), a rich social media influencer who is riding on the coat tails of her famous father, and The Man I Want To Be With (let’s call him TMIWTBW). TMIWTBW is involved with both women, as well as a number of others. In fact, he’s emotionally stunted, sexually incontinent and vain.
X is difficult character, but it’s hard not to sympathise with her as she’s so starkly honest. She also evokes pity, even though much of her suffering is self-inflicted.
The book is short and pretty brutal, but it’s full of razor sharp descriptions, and it also includes several laugh out loud moments (huge thanks to the author for these – there are not enough of them in fiction.) There are several discourses on art in the book, referencing artists such as Martine Syms and Abbas Zahedi, amongst others. There’s a hilarious passage where X’s boyfriend takes her to a Paul Klee exhibition where she behaves appallingly, as she doesn’t understand the art and it makes her feel stupid.
I asked a number of questions, and invited Sheena Patel to answer the ones she was comfortable with, and to include questions she may have wished to be asked. As she mentions in her response, some of the questions certainly stepped into deeply personal territory, given the novel’s raw, autofictional feel.
Here’s her response:
“Some of those felt v personal – I answered these ones:
• What prompted you to write this book? I needed something to do in lockdown and Nina Herve the publisher at Rough Trade Books encouraged me to do it. I was noticing patterns and putting them together.
• The style is so distinctive. How did you find this voice? Did it come to you immediately, or did it evolve over drafts? It was there and it evolved but also the style isn’t that distinctive. there’s lots of books that are written in a fragmentary style.
• Were there any books, writers, or other media that helped shape your approach to telling this story? Yes all the books I’ve ever read. Rebecca, Minor Feelings, Hanif Kureishi.
• Social media fuels your narrative; it would not be possible for X to feed her obsessions quite so feverishly without it. Has social media turned us all into quietly seething envious voyeurs? How do you think digital culture has changed the way we experience desire, jealousy and self-worth? I don’t think you need me to answer this, it’s evident in our everyday lives. It’s very hard to be offline.
• X is full of spiralling thoughts which are, on the whole, pretty toxic. Is she deranged, or is this a logical reaction to how she’s treated and how she views herself? I think what you think of her reveals what you think of yourself.
• In a book where identity is so central, none of your characters have names. Why did you make this choice? I didn’t make that choice. It just happened.”
There are plenty of limitations in a Q&A; it’s nowhere near as satisfactory as a naturally unfolding conversation. The novel invites difficult questions, and my intention was to engage critically with the author about some of the deeply nuanced themes featured in the book. Some of the questions I asked were undoubtedly uncomfortable, much like the book itself. I had hoped for more dialogue, but perhaps this tension between reader and author is inevitable for a novel that defies easy interpretation.
Here’s a question for anyone reading this post: When a novel features thorny issues such as power, race, identity and female desire, doesn’t an author have some kind of responsibility to defend their position? I don’t mean in the face of hostility, which is plain bad manners, but in response to thoughtful questioning? Isn’t that part of the deal when an author enters the public arena? On the other hand, shouldn’t the text speak for itself? Why should an author have to defend or explain anything? I’d love to hear your responses.
Whatever your views, the book is a great thought-provoking read and I can highly recommend it.