LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
‘Ha! Once Asian, never again Caucasian. Alma recalled her words to Daniel, her foolish clever words, as if joking about being racially interchangeable could protect her from it, as if being right had ever protected anyone from anything.’
Following three sets of characters who we realise are interconnected through the violinist Daniel, who was once engaged to Alma, and ruined the life of Kyoko’s mother. It’s brilliant at conveying truthful, believable contradictions in people – for example, an early scene involves a character about to murder someone, only to discover the victim already in the act of trying to kill himself – the would-be murderer is so furious and surprised that they actually save his life, supposedly in order to be able to kill him themself. Dry and confronting, it thinks about revenge and desire, how love and the betrayal of love can make people do crazy things, and in particular the experience of Asian women being Othered, and not seen as individual subjects by the white men who sleep with them.
The manuscript was dated 2014, and has then been there is something otherworldly and timeless about it, but not at all out of date, still feels startling and surprising and urgent. There’s even a passage that felt almost prescient of how Western cultures laid the blame for Covid at the foot of Asian communities. It makes me want to read Katherine Min’s other novel, Secondhand World, and what a loss to literature that there won’t be more novels from Min.
Lily Lindon
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About
The Fetishist Synopsis
A daughter seeks revenge on the man she believes drove her mother to her death . . . and nothing goes as planned.
The rain has made everything cold and damp, and it's the perfect evening for Kyoko to exact her revenge. After years of rage and grief over her mother's death, Kyoko has decided who is to blame: a man named Daniel, a fellow violinist who had wooed her mother, Emi, and then dropped her - driving her to her death. Kyoko follows the unsuspecting Daniel home and manages to get her rash kidnapping plot off the ground . . . and really, what could go wrong?
The Fetishist is the story of three people - Kyoko, a young singer in a punk band who cannot find enough ways to channel her angry sorrow; Daniel, a seemingly hapless man who finally faces the wreckage of his past; and Alma, the love of Daniel's life, long adored for her beauty and talent, but who spends her final days examining if she was ever, truly, loved.
It's a beautiful, piercing and timely story that confronts race, ideals of femininity, complicity and visibility. Written and completed before the celebrated author's death in 2019, it's startlingly relevant and prescient, as wise and powerful as it is utterly moving.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780349727936 |
| Publication date: |
29th February 2024 |
| Author: |
Katherine Min |
| Publisher: |
Fleet an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
352 pages |
| Primary Genre |
General Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Press Reviews
Katherine Min Press Reviews
THE FETISHIST is lit from the very first page with a wicked, crackling, hilarious intensity. The subject is provocative, the writing is flush with elegance and intelligence. I finished this book and immediately wanted to talk about it with someone. It's a fire-starter of a novel -- Jami Attenberg
THE FETISHIST is so reverent and so unruly, so delicate and so explosive, such a merge of chamber music with the mosh pit, so devastatingly sad and devastatingly FUNNY and alive and generous with its abundance of life! I mourn Katherine Min, and am grateful this fiery novel of hers insisted its way out of Katherine's laptop and into the world.Hats off to Kayla Min Andrews for clearing the path -- Susan Choi, author of Trust Exercise and American Woman
Fiercely intelligent, perfectly crafted, and brimming with wit, The Fetishist is a moving exploration of art, love, grief, and desire. Katherine Min's sentences will provoke you and wind their way around your heart -- Lisa Ko, author of THE LEAVERS
Blistering and brilliant, The Fetishist will move, anger, and make you wince with recognition. Katherine Min is a singular, wildly talented voice and this is a trailblazing novel which deserves widespread attention for its literary merits as well as the overdue conversations it will surely evoke. As incisive and topical on fetishisation and intersectionality as Kiley Reid's Such a Fun Age and Raven Leilani's Luster. -- Sharlene Teo, author of PONTI
Incandescent, astonishing, a miracle. I'm elated and deeply grateful this book exists -- R. O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries
