I’m a Fan (2023)

Why this one?

I’m currently dipping into some tempting titles from the 2023 Women’s Prize Longlist. This debut novel has been all over the ‘Gram for some time now. Originally released last year, its of-the-moment subject matter seems to have struck a chord and therefore it definitely felt worth giving it a go.

Sheena Patel (c. 1989- ; active 2017- ) was born in North West London to a mother from Mauritius and a Kenyan-Indian father. She read a lot as a child, with favourite authors including Jean Rhys and Hanif Kureishi (the latter is briefly referenced in I'm a Fan), and studied English Literature at Queen Mary University. She worked (and still works) in television and film as a director. She set up the collective 4 Brown Girls Who Write in 2017 (through which she wrote the first chapter of her debut), who have performed at galleries and festivals, featured in the likes of Vogue, and toured with the awesome Sleaford Mods.

Thoughts, etc.

I’m a Fan is told through the eyes of an unnamed female narrator, aged around thirty and living in South East London. It’s a thoroughly contemporary novel, with its central protagonist living much of her life mediated via the lens of social media. It mainly details her relationships with two further unnamed characters: “The Man I Want To Be With”, a powerful older male celebrity with whom she falls into an occasional sexual relationship, very much on his terms and fitting around his marriage, career and multiple other infidelities, notably with “The Woman I Am Obsessed With”, a wealthy British social media influencer now living in the States. It takes the form of a series of mostly fairly short vignettes, jumping back and forth through both relationships and showing both the magnetic pull of these characters (and, by implication, celebrity and social media ‘influence’) and also the ultimate distance, vapidity and ultimate negative impact of both.

This is another book that I began without great hopes of enjoying, though I was certainly intrigued to read it. Reviews refer to it as ‘vicious’, ‘brutal’ and suchlike, which didn’t especially appeal to my tastes, and even when I began reading I felt that this wasn’t going to be up my street. Its focus initially seems to be on the fairly well-trodden theme of obsessive relationships (particularly of the romantic / sexual kind), something which I don’t feel overly engaged by or empathetic towards. However, as I stuck with it I was rewarded with something I wasn’t quite expecting.

While Patel’s commentary on certain characters, notably the Man, is damning, it’s far from being an overly uncomfortable read in totality. The author is on record as saying she wanted to ‘make people feel sick’ when reading, which I think implies something far more difficult and hard to read than the book actually is. Of course when working through the book you’re increasingly disgusted by the Man’s selfishness, cruelty and sexism, but the storytelling is far more subtle and complex than those comments would imply. There’s humour in here, alongside the darkness, and its narrator is richly and deliberately multi-faceted. She’s both utterly sympathetic in what she suffers and also clearly far from blameless in ending up where she does, and the life she’s living remains attractive enough for her to continue to pursue it- she’s having fun, whether we approve or not.

Its subtlelty works wonders when eventually the narrator becomes more explicit in detailing her intersectional issues as a woman, a woman of colour, and a person from a relatively disadvantaged background. There are moments of revelation that are very cleverly withheld and all the more impactful when they do surface. Its seriousness of subject matter is nicely undercut by its headline-liking chapter titles, which occasionally feel lifted from meme-like social media content and alternate between piercingly withering commentary on the following text, and an entertaining randomness (much like best memes).

If the Woman she’s obsessed with occasionally feels like a cliche, she’s still fascinatingly awful. While it’s vaguely possible to empathise with the narrator’s unfortunate infatuation with the Man, this influencer feels almost entirely devoid of appeal - although I suppose that could well just be from my perspective. That’s something to chew on, as ultimately this book is written from the perspective of a character brought up in an era of social media immersion, and the obsessions (good and bad) that it drives can be slightly harder to relate to even for someone less than ten years older. Nevertheless, I found it a snappy, engaging and thought-provoking read, and definitely understand the hype.

Score

8.5

I can see how for some readers this could push even higher score-wise. It’s a very smart book whose themes transcend its initial very much ‘of the moment’ vibe. I would be fairly surprised, based on my limited reading of the longlist so far, if this wasn’t on the shortlist.

Next up

Another longlist read, if I can squeeze one in before the shortlist is announced!