Yellowface

by R.F. Kuang

(nobody in their right mind goes with Amazon, Brett assures me; they’re here just to drive price up),

“I am white,”

Really? Do the white Americans really identify themselves as white first and Irish/Jewish/Italian second or not at all? It was definitely the opposite in Salinger’s time. Could it be that Ms. Kuang is projecting here?

Central Europe,

She means Eastern Europe. If it was about Germany and Austria, she would just say so.

But the best revenge is to thrive.

Highlander Syndrome—I’ve

magpie’s eye for suffering.

Roland Barthes. An act of translation is an act of betrayal.”

Isaac Asimov was a serial sexual harasser; so was Harlan Ellison. David Foster Wallace abused, harassed, and stalked Mary Karr. They are still hailed as geniuses.

half-decent website that doesn’t immediately appear like a Russian hacker’s trap.

famous literary couples like Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald if Zelda had published more.

Social media is such a tiny, insular space. Once you close your screen, no one gives a fuck.

I can’t give you telehealth care if you’re not in Connecticut. I’m not licensed to practice in Virginia.”

get a gnawing desire in their gut for the fairyland that cast them out.

The truth is fluid. There is always another way to spin the story, another wrench to throw into the narrative.