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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart. We're going to talk about this month's Get Lit with All Of It book club selection, a psychological thriller and industry drama about the world of publishing, it's called Yellowface. Author R.F. Kuang established herself in the industry with her award-winning debut fantasy trilogy, The Poppy War, and her bestselling book, Babel, also in the fantasy genre.

Yellowface is different. It takes a cold, hard, very real look inside the publishing industry. In the book, we follow June Hayward, a white author who has not made it professionally. That is until her college frenemy, Athena Liu, a glamorous and successful young Chinese American writer, chokes to death on a pancake as June watches. June then makes off with some of Athena's work and decides to pass it off as her own novel, and to pass as Asian American.

The book is a smash, and now June is a 21st-century literary star until an online troll uses a Twitter account called Athena's Ghost, to start publicly connecting the dots. We'll be talking with author R.F. Kuang about Yellowface for October Get Lit with All Of It book club. We'll also hear some live performances from our musical guest, mxmtoon.

We're going to play you a little Get Lit preview from when R.F. Kuang joined me live on the show to talk about Yellowface when it first came out. I started by asking her to describe some of the discourse that was percolating in the publishing industry when she decided to write this book.

R.F. Kuang: We were having all these conversations in publishing about diversity and representation, who was on the lists, who was receiving publisher support. I think the big thing in my mind was transparency. There was this campaign in late 2020 called Publishing Paid Me, which was launched by two Black authors. They were encouraging other authors, especially white authors, to share the size of their advances because previously, talking about the size of your advance or really sharing any deal terms at all was not considered all that classy. You don't talk about money, you keep things close to your chest.

Then as folks started sharing their respective deals, it became very apparent that there's this huge disparity between what white debut writers are getting paid. There are untested writers who've never had a book out who were getting massive six-figure deals, which good for them, but on the other hand, there were so many award-winning bestselling Black authors with a very strong proven track record who couldn't even get a 10th of that from publishers. People were really asking why, and it became so apparent that there's so much about the industry that authors, especially newer authors don't know.

Nobody really understands how it works. It feels like murky witchcraft, trying to divine how you're doing or how your publisher views you. One of the things that was forefront on my mind is that I just want to lay all of my experiences out there and crack open the conversation a bit.

Alison Stewart: Yes, it's quite transparent. It's obviously written by someone who's been through this experience. Let's talk about Athena. I'm not giving anything away, that she chokes to death. It happens, it's the book's opening line., but after talking with the police, June was there, she has taken a draft of Athena's work and she tries to pass it off on her own. She's able to do this, which I thought was incredibly clever because Athena would only write on a typewriter, so there wouldn't be any saved copies anywhere. What makes June take the manuscript? Is she just impulsive? Is she just that desperate for success?

R.F. Kuang: She is impulsive. She is desperate for success, but at the core of June's character is this deep resentment at publishing and all the ways in which it's broken and all the ways in which she feels that it hasn't given her her due. June has been working at her craft for years and years, and she's quite a talented writer too. It's just that for many, many writers, not just June, publishing doesn't work the way they think it will. Their dreams don't come true overnight.

For June, she had just this heartbreaking experience with her first book coming out and receiving lukewarm reviews, really nobody coming to her bookstore events. She's just dealt with this frustration and humiliation for all this time that she poured her heart and soul into this work and nobody cared. She feels that publishing is a rigged game, that it only values diversity as a trend, that it's very performative that authors like Athena by comparison, who are so critically acclaimed and get all this attention, are only there because they do represent this token diversity.

Because she thinks it's a rigged game, in her mind, it's do whatever it takes to get ahead. She's playing a giant prank on the literary world, and it's coming from this conviction that nothing was fair, to begin with, and so why should she play fair?

Alison Stewart: My guest is R.F. Kuang. The name of the novel is Yellowface. We read the story from June's point of view. It's all of her inner thoughts, but we're also not sure if she's entirely reliable. Sometimes it seems like she's diluting herself, sometimes she has these incredible moments of clarity and she's able to articulate actually what's all very messed up in publishing. How are you thinking about June's reliability as a narrator?

R.F. Kuang: She's completely unreliable. [laughs] She's not just deceiving everybody else. She's also constantly trying to deceive herself. She's taking you through all these mental gymnastics to convince you that what she did was okay and that you shouldn't feel bad about it and then that she's not a racist. June will find any excuse other than face up the fact that maybe the way that she views the world, maybe her beliefs about other people are skewed, but in a sense, it's because June is so unhinged that she's able to sometimes say things that are quite perceptive and actually really on point about the publishing industry that nobody else dares to address.

I think a lot of the times in publishing, we're all just putting on a stiff upper lip and pretending these gains of politeness and positivity and cheerfulness and ignoring all the rotten stuff happening in the bottom. June, by virtue of being so unhinged and unreliable and desperately alienated, she's able to say the ugly truths that nobody else wants to live up to.

Alison Stewart: Another interesting point of discussion and the controversy is, who owns whose story? People remember the Who Is the Bad Art Friend?, New York Times Magazine piece. Can you take someone else's life experiences and make it your own if you add to it, even if you fictionalize it? How much of that conversation did you want to intersperse in the book?

R.F. Kuang: Oh, I think about that stuff all the time. I wanted to make it clear that Athena has stolen parts of June's life for her own stories because I didn't want this novel to be such a simple black-and-white morality tale of evil white writer steals and exploits the work of dead Chinese American writer. I think that would be a very boring story. I always like to make things muddy and complicate the picture a bit more.

In bringing up flashbacks later on in the novel where we learned that Athena has taken things that June told her in confidence, very painful, traumatic things, and turned them into short stories where June is not acknowledged, she didn't even give June a heads-up. She just did this to further her own literary career. I wanted to use that to disambiguate the question of stealing each other's stories from the question of racism and cultural appropriation. I think no writers really know where to draw the line.

You have some people who think that anything is okay in service of good fiction, that you can treat everybody in your life as a source for material. You can hold them upside down by their ankles and shake them for the loose pocket change of life experience. In the case of Bad Art Friend, some people are arguing that, well, it's a short story so she can do whatever she likes. The veneer of fiction, the disclaimer, which I've always found a bit disingenuous this disclaimer, that the events and people in the story have no relationship to events and people in real life. That's obviously not true.

I actually think this is less of an ethical or aesthetics question and more of just an interpersonal question of how are you treating your friends. It's not a question of are writers allowed to do this, but if your friend told this in confidence, would you put it in a short story and be able to look them in the eye after?

Alison Stewart: Before I let you go, the role of social media is so interesting in this book. What's one thing you'd like people to know about the role of social media in publishing these days?

R.F. Kuang: It plays far too great a role, and I'm a bit nervous about it. It seems like all authors are expected to be online these days. Because authors are so visible, it seems like they have to sell narratives on two levels. First, the level of the text, the actual story that they've created that they want readers to experience, but also the authors constantly need to tell a narrative about themselves to create a personal brand to seem likable, interesting all the time.

It worries me because all this work of performing on social media distracts from the work of writing stories themselves. I wonder if we can reach a new publishing equilibrium where we're not so focused on constantly shilling out ourselves rather than working on a craft.

Alison Stewart: That was a Get Lit with All Of It preview of R.F. Kuang. The name of the book is Yellowface. I want to remind you, you can join us October 26th. Unfortunately, you have to join us via the live stream. I shouldn't say unfortunately. Fortunately, it was a big hit, and the event sold out, the live event at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. Our musical guest will be mxmtoon. As I said, that will be live. The event is sold out, but you can join us on the live stream.

You can register for that on the New York Public Library's event page nypl.org/events. As long as we're talking about events, we have a couple coming up, very special, All Of It WNYC exclusive events. You know how we like our radio listening parties, where we interview musicians about new releases, discuss their inspirations, and dive into their process of writing, and recording, and producing. Well, starting in October, this month, we're going to bring these deep dive interviews in front of a live audience for an event we're calling "Listening Party Live."

To kick things off, on October 16th, we're excited to announce that our guest will be the man who walked off with five Grammys in 2022, including Album of the Year. He has new workout, it's all about the radio. We are going to be joined by Jon Batiste.

[MUSIC - Jon Batiste: Calling Your Name]

Alison Stewart: That was Jon Batiste. On October 16th, we're hosting a "Listening Party Live" with the man who walked off with five Grammys in 2022. The name of the album is World Music Radio. We're going to talk about the new album. He's going to perform songs live. Now tickets for this in-person event, they sold out, too, but you can still join us via live stream. Visit wnyc.org/thegreenespace to sign up. That is happening October 16th at 7:00 PM.

I wanted to let you know, of course, so we have three big things. We have Jon Batiste on the 16th. We have Get Lit with R.F. Kuang on the 26th, and then a few days later, we are hosting a very special All Of It blood drive. When I was getting evaluated to be a kidney donor for my sister, I found myself giving a lot of blood, and I learned that New York City's blood supply is critically low. For the fifth anniversary of the show, they said, "Alison, what do you want to do?" I said, "I want to host a blood drive."

We are partnering with the New York Blood Center to organize a drive Monday, October 30th, from 12:00 to 4:30 in the Greene Space here at WNYC. The other good news is the New York Blood Center has adopted the FDA's new inclusive guidelines to determine eligibility for blood donation, which includes eliminating this decades-old rule that prohibited sexually active gay men from being blood donors. We are so pleased to be able to help out with New York City's blood supply. That's Monday, October 30th, from 12:00 to 4:30 PM.

I've had a bunch of people tell me they've already signed up. To donate, you can sign up for a slot at wnyc.org/giveblood, and we hope to see you in a few weeks here at WNYC. We are going to circle back to our Get Lit with All Of It book club event with R.F. Kuang. As you know, we love books here at WNYC. We know you love books as well.

We're actually going to open our phone lines for a few minutes. We want to hear what you're reading. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. The fall is always a tremendous time for new releases. You can call us 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can also text to us at that number or shoot us a DM via Instagram or Twitter @AllOfItWNYC. Maybe you're thinking, Alison, we rely on you and you're all the team to tell me what to read or to make suggestions for what to read, like Walter Mosley's new book. We've grabbed Jordan, our book goddess. That's what I'm going to call you. Jordan,-

Jordan Lauf: I'm putting that on my resume immediately.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] -who runs Get Lit, and is somebody who I'm not giving my tails. We worry about your desk. There are so many books on it. We worry about your safety on a regular basis. [laughs]

Jordan Lauf: I don't think it's structurally sound how many books I have on my desk.

Alison Stewart: All right. If you wanted to give somebody advice of something, let's start with something fun, something a little bit light. Do you have something light that you can suggest for fall reading?

Jordan Lauf: Let me think. It's not necessarily light, but it's something that you are going to be turning pages, you're going to want to know what happens next. We had her on the show actually while you were out, Alison. I'm sad you missed her. Angie Kim who wrote Happiness Falls, which is a new thriller which tells the story of a family. There are two twins and a younger brother who has a disability that renders him unable to speak or communicate verbally.

One day, he is out in the park with his dad. He comes home, he's got blood on him, and the dad is missing, and the family doesn't know where he is, and the only person who does is the son who is unable to verbally communicate. This family has to get together and try to sort of figure out where the dad is, how to find him, and also how to communicate with their son who it turns out-- let's say just because he can't communicate verbally doesn't mean he can't communicate or doesn't have the ability to understand what's going on and what's happened to his dad.

I learned actually a lot about different modes of communication, different ways that people work with people with disabilities in order to get them access to different modes of communication. I thought it was really superbly written. It'll have you turning pages and you'll be satisfied by the ending, I think.

Alison Stewart: I love that. Let's talk to Phyllis from Freehold, New Jersey. Hi, Phyllis, thanks for calling in.

Phyllis: Thank you. Hello.

Alison Stewart: Hi. What are you reading? What do you suggest?

Phyllis: Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See.

Alison Stewart: Why do you suggest it?

Phyllis: It has a little bit of everything in it. It has history, it has women empowerment, it has friendship, romance. It's a lovely book.

Alison Stewart: That's a good sell. Let's talk to Greg from Brooklyn. Hi, Greg. Thanks for calling All Of It. What have you been reading?

Greg: I'm reading a book called Piko: A Return to the Dreaming by Jennifer Lighty

Alison Stewart: Tell me about this. What's it about?

Greg: Well, I've started it, but I'm excited about it because it's a friend and it's her first published book.

Alison Stewart: Oh, nice.

Greg: She's written poetry, but this is a memoir, and it's called A Return to the Dreaming, and it's involves Hawaiian folklore and poetry and storytelling, and it's just a beautiful book.

Alison Stewart: Greg, thank you for calling in. Listeners, if you want to share what you're reading, a suggestion for your fellow All Of It listeners, 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC is our number. You can call or text to us. All right. Jordan, what else is on your list that you would recommend?

Jordan Lauf: This is maybe an out-there suggestion. I'm a bit of an eclectic reader, so I read novels, but I also read a lot of nonfiction. I recently read an older book called The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of Their Lost World by Stephen Brusatte, I think is how you say it. It's exactly what it sounds. It's a history of evolution and dinosaurs. I learned so much that I probably should have remembered from kindergarten but totally forgot. Did you know that T. rexes had feathers?

Alison Stewart: No, I don't think I did know that.

Jordan Lauf: I also didn't know that they hunted in packs, but apparently they did. I learned all these fun facts, and it's made me really want to go to the Natural History Museum and go look at the bones after reading so much about these real-life creatures that walk the Earth.

Alison Stewart: It's funny because we both read for a living. It's exciting when you get to read a book just for fun.

Jordan Lauf: I know.

Alison Stewart: I did a lot of that when I was out. It was the book that everybody was reading on the beach, The Guest.

Jordan Lauf: Oh, yes.

Alison Stewart: By Emma-

Jordan Lauf: Emma Cline.

Alison Stewart: -Cline, about this young woman who, it's just you're following this young woman who's a bit of a drifter, and has gotten by on her looks and her charm, and is just floating her way through the Hamptons through different people's homes and different people's lives, and with her willingness to lie and she just wants to get to the party of her rich boyfriend so that she can once again have a place to live and stay. It's been very controversial, but it was really interesting. Talk about like you don't-- In the end, it has a Sopranos-like end.

Jordan Lauf: Yes. I saw a lot of people on the subway reading that one this summer for sure.

Alison Stewart: All right. Somebody wrote, "Just ordered a copy of Ross Gay's Book of (More) Delights. Can't wait to start it." He's also speaking in French town on November 21st. All right. What else can you recommend in our last few minutes?

Jordan Lauf: I just finished a very New York novel The Changeling by Victor LaValle. I was inspired to read it both because the LaKeith Stanfield's adaptation is out now, and Victor LaValle was one of our great Get Lit guests. I loved it. It's about a couple in which the wife becomes convinced that their baby is not real. Some violence ensues. The husband is left to go on the search for his wife, and see if their child is still alive somewhere.

It all takes place in New York, but it also has this very mystical horror bent to it. It's really spooky, but also it has a birthing scene on the subway. That's not a spoiler, it happens in the first chapter. It's a great New York read.

Alison Stewart: Real quick, let's talk to Dee from the Upper West Side. Dee, you've got about 30 seconds.

Dee: Kantika by Elizabeth Graver. It's historical fiction, based on her grandmother, but it's fiction. It starts out in the Ottoman Empire. It's a story of this woman that travels from there to Spain, and ends up in Cuba, and then ultimately in Astoria, Queens.

Alison Stewart: Dee, thank you so much. I'm also going to say Happy Place by Emily Henry, considering it's 80 degrees outside. It was a summer-beach read, [chuckles] so it's hot swim-soaked read. You want to slide one last one in 20 seconds?

Jordan Lauf: Uhh, 20 seconds. I really loved Evil Eye by Etaf Rum. We also had her on the show, and it's about a Palestinian American woman. It's worth picking up and the cover is beautiful.

Alison Stewart: Jordan Lauf with some reading picks. Thanks to listeners who called in as well. There's more All Of It coming up after the break.

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