Book Review: Queenie, Candice Carty-Williams
Queenie the book sat with Queenie the cat.
So, full disclosure… This is the first book review I've written in which I've had to wrangle with whether I should have just written it blind, to give a honest review, or whether it's important to fact-check so you:
Don't look like an idiot.
Write from a more measured place of judgement.
What am I jabbering on about you ask? Well, all I knew about Queenie originally, was that it had rave reviews, an excellent cover and a title I loved… That was definitely enough to make me pick up the book, one of my only criticisms of it was what you’ll find in the first 3 paragraphs below, written before I read anything about Candice Carty-Williams:
There's a lack of subtlety when it comes to trying to include a white audience, it feels a little unimaginative that black characters are explaining their language choices to white friends via What'sApp. I found myself struggling to suspend my disbelief during those moments, I can't be sure why though. Maybe I'm being defensive... I find myself thinking Darcy seems sheltered as she doesn't understand the local slang. But, the very fact that she wants to, somehow only adds to the sense of her being a stereotype, a wannabe woke white person, (trying to be simultaneously hip and inclusive) and just making everyone else awkward. It doesn’t ingratiate her to me.
Darcy: @Kyazike, I know I should just go on Urban Dictionary but for the sake of brevity, what does 'skeen' mean?
Kyazike: It means seen
Kyazike: Like, I see
Darcy: Right. I’m with you.
However, this is, in part, where the triumph of Carty-Williams writing lies, her characters have subtle and nuanced flaws. We like Darcy, even though she’s a predictable character in many ways; she’s a reliable side-kick and we recognise her role in progressing the narrative. She could offer very little in the way of challenge, but, as I said before, she needles at us a little, because while she’s always got Queenie’s best interests at heart, she still doesn’t really engage with her black identity in more than a perfunctory sense of being along for the ride.
So, what’s my problem? Well, mostly that I initially felt like maybe an editor had a hand in trying to make sure the book didn’t alienate a white readership. As a white woman, I didn’t want to be pandered to that way. I found myself thinking of books dripping with Glaswegian phraseology and how unapologetic they seemed in their representation.
There’s also the way that Queenie works in journalism and her (white, female) manager just refuses to engage in stories that centre the Black Lives Matter movement. Queenie’s frustration and pain seem controlled, I, naively, once again thought this might be so as not to alienate those (white readers) that are also like colourblind boss lady.
But, here's the kicker, by doing a little research around the book I have realised that by worrying Candice Carty-Williams was facing gatekeeping from the white world of publishing, and the white fragility of a future readership, I have inadvertently discredited her. Because not only was she a journalist and screenwriter prior to releasing her debut novel, but in 2016 she also established the Guardian and Fourth Estate’s BAME Short Story Prize, the first inclusive initiative of its kind in book publishing… She knew what she was doing when she wrote Queenie. She’s not been ‘handled‘, she just knows how to handle a broad audience herself. I’m embarrassed, as if this powerhouse needed my white saviour complex to kick in!
Including my faux-pas, I think, is important. It’s telling of something that’s reflective of this exact moment in time. Polarising voices have been gripping the political sphere for the greater part of this decade, social media is saturated with cancellation culture and divisive slogans are being championed by even normally measured voices. So, to find some gentle reflections on insidious inequalities and microaggressions felt odd, yet it’s exactly what we need and more human because of this, more realistic and forgiving and Carty-Williams seems generous in spirit. (No, I’m not tone policing, I’m talking directly in relation to a fictional novel not a BLM march!)
Queenie has a slew of accolades: Book of year at the British Book Awards, a Sunday Times bestseller, long listed for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel award, long listed for the Jhalak Prize, Blackwell's debut novel of the year, shortlisted for Waterstones book of the year, shortlisted for Foyles book of the year, and named as one of the Guardian’s, Times, Sunday Times, and Evening standard’s best books for 2019. The first adjective used in both quotes on the cover, reference the humour, Dolly Alderton says it’s “hilarious“ and The Times calls it “funny“.
While there is humour throughout the book, I think Alderton’s second choice of descriptor should be the main focus, “compelling“. Queenie’s story is powerfully irresistible. I read it in three sittings, staying awake until 2 and 3am. My compulsion was fuelled by Queenie trying to get mental health support and reconcile that with her family, who are adamant treatment for mental health is exclusively for white people. This strand of the story is so beautifully portrayed, you can feel the cringing and desperation, the fear of the unknown and the fracturous feelings of breaking with tradition. It’s this aspect of the book that seems to kick the hardest. It’s a call to action for the black community too, reminding those readers to use their voices for change. But, without preaching or chastising.
Carty-Williams has created a fictional story in a world that is very real, so recognisable that it as delicious as it is infuriating. For every disgusting fetishisation of black women, there is a moment of intimacy between friends as they do each others hair or message about date disasters, there’s matriarchs and the obliviously financially secure, there’s cut-throat landlords, dickhead housemates, damp and HR debacles. London’s certainly been called out as much as it’s calling us in. The gentrification is particularly painful.
Should you read it? If you just want an easy escape, no. This book is easy to read, but it’s not an easy story, I won’t be forgetting Queenie anytime soon. This novel is as much a political vignette as it is a work of fiction, and it’s all the better because of it. So, I guess it depends on whether you like your social commentary straight-up or sugar-coated?
Examples of Carty-Williams’s Style:
‘How do you pronounce your name again?‘ Cassandra asked.
I winced. Although it’s better her asking than attempting a guess and butchering the pronounciation, I’d spoken about Kyazike enough for Cassandra to have remembered. She’d have remembered if it had been a basic name like Sarah or Rachel or something.
‘Chess. Keh‘ Kyazike said.
‘Oh okay, like Jessica without the “ic“ in the middle?‘ Cassandra asked.
‘No. Like my own name. Not some any Western name. Chess. Keh,‘ she repeated. I was worried that she was going to tell Cassandra about herself, but instead she looked down at Cassandra’s feet.
‘Nice shoes. Miu Miu?‘ Kyazike said, impressed.
I exhaled.
You might like Queenie if you enjoyed:
Mr Commitment, Mike Gayle
Normal People, Sally Rooney
