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Mar 13, 2017azuki rated this title 1 out of 5 stars
I borrowed this book expecting to love it, based on glowing reviews and my excitement for reading more books by people of color. I couldn't have been more disappointed. Three issues I had (no plot spoilers within): 1. The four main characters are Malcolm, Jude, JB, and Willem. Malcolm and JB are Black; Jude is a non-Black person of color with ambiguous heritage, and Willem is white. Yanagihara (who seems to be a non-Black person of color herself) treats them in starkly different ways. Whereas JB and Malcolm's flaws are represented as aspects of their personality/character, Jude and Willem are far and away the more kindhearted, reflective, and emotionally generous of the group. They even share a particular connection to each other, mostly characterized by tenderness and self-sacrifice (JB and Malcolm are left out of this, presumably because of how self-centered they are). JB and Malcolm are often seen doing what's in their own interests and choosing their own comfort over Jude and Willem's, when tension arises. Even worse, Yanagihara takes special care to explicitly dismiss Malcolm and JB's experiences of racism by naming class privilege: "Growing up, the fact of his father's blackness (and, he supposed, his own), had been trumped by other, more significant matters, factors that counted for more in their slice of New York City than his father's race: his wife's prominence in the Manhattan literary scene, for example, and most importantly, his wealth. The New York that Malcolm and his family occupied was one divided not along racial lines but rather tax brackets, and Malcolm had grown up insulated from everything that money could protect him from, including bigotry himself..." (61) Yanagihara perpetuates the harmful and false idea that anti-Black racism exists solely through classism -- that she uses a Black character to validate this is even more digusting. There are other examples of her flippant treatment of Black experience, but don't take my word for it. Even the New York Times' review states, "Malcolm and JB soon fade into minor characters as race becomes a nonissue". 2. The first mention of a trans person is the essentially as the butt of a joke: two of the characters (guess who? Malcolm and JB) discuss an acquaintance who they've heard is transitioning. Not only do they intentionally misgender the person, they also debate the validity of the person's right to transition based on their own assessments of that person's gender. No opposition is presented to these transphobic remarks, and once again, Yanagihara uses her Black characters to communicate dismissive, demeaning sentiments about marginalized experiences. 3. It's no secret that Jude, the central character, has survived tremendous trauma (the nature of which is slowly revealed through increasingly graphic descriptions). What I found frustrating is how Jude's character epitomizes the "perfect victim" paradigm. Any behavior of Jude's that is negatively portrayed is immediately and heavy-handedly contextualized by his experiences of violence. Though it's important to contexutalize people's behaviors through their lived experiences, it's entirely different to create characters who are two-dimensional because of their trauma. For more about why the "perfect victim" trope is harmful and alienating to survivors of violence, see A. Lea Roth and Nastassja Schmiedt's article, "Hunting for the Perfect Victim", and Shannon Perez-Darby's "The Secret Joy of Accountability", in The Revolution Starts at Home anthology. To me, this book is a demonstration of how non-Black people of color can and do perpetuate anti-Black racism; how the prominent portrayal of cis queer characters does little to shift toxic cultural narratives of queer and trans people; and how portraying trauma unflinchingly is no substitute for honoring survivors' complexity.