Emira Tucker is a twenty-something recent College graduate who feels rudderless and inadequately equipped for adulthood. Emira who is black, works part time as a babysitter for a wealthy white couple, the Kiley Reid’s novel opens with Emira at her friends 26^th Birthday party. The celebrations are interrupted with a phone call from Emira’s boss Alix Chamberlain, asking her to “take Briar to the grocery store for a bit?” (1) Whilst taking care of Briar at the grocery Emira is racially profiled by a security guard, accused of kidnapping the white child she is taking care of.  A white bystander, Kelley Copeland, who eventually becomes Emira’s boyfriend records the encounter “I got the whole thing on tape. I would turn it into a news station if I were you.” (16) This fateful encounter changes the trajectories for the characters’ lives, and allows Reid to blur the lines between an employee and boss relationship or an obsessive friendship to seek the cure for white guilt. And raises questions as to whether the relationship between Emira and Kelley is an innocent interracial relationship or a man who has fetish for black women and black culture.

Alix is your quintessential white liberal millennial ‘girlboss’ feminist, with her blog ‘LetHerSpeak’ she has capitalised white female empowerment. “Her propensity for receiving free merchandise quickly turned into a philosophy about women speaking up.” (22) Her brand of feminism is not about empowering women from marginalised backgrounds or even women from a lower class than her, it is corporate, capitalist friendly and entrepreneurial. Alix’s guilt over Emira’s encounter at the grocery store causes her to become obsessed with befriending her. Robin DiAngelo in her novel ‘White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism’ dissects the nature of racism in white liberals and the precarious nature of colour-blindness. “I believe that white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color. I define a white progressive as any white person who thinks he or she is not racist, or is less racist, or in the “choir,” or already “gets it.” Alix never sees Emira as a person, she is instead a vehicle to absolve her from criticism and a racist conflict from high school. She wants Emira to use her youth and blackness to validate her own anxieties, a token black friend, a trophy to win.

Reid, with the grocery store scene created a deeply pertinent case of racial profiling that echoes similar encounters that frequently pop up in the news cycle, a non-existent crime that speaks directly to white prejudice and privilege. The novel is set in 2016, viral videos depicting racial violence and discrimination at the hands of police officers and security guards are heavily discussed topics both in mainstream news media but especially on the internet. Emira has two fears, getting arrested, and going viral. The looming threat of the tape releasing constantly weighs on Emira’s mind. During their relationship Kelley frequently tries to convince Emira to release the tape much to her chagrin and discomfort, “You gotta stop bringing up that tape from Market Depot.” (193) The tape offers opportunities to the people around her, to partake in the role of white saviours. It offers Kelley a chance to posture how not-racist he is, to fetishize and consume her blackness and perceived coolness. As their relationship progresses we see how deeply invested Kelley is with black people and their culture, all his friends are black as are most of his previous girlfriends. He has appropriated traditional African-American style and vernacular, most striking is when he causally uses the n-word in front of Emira. Reid leaves Kelley as ambiguous he isn’t as performative as Alix and does seem at points to genuinely care for Emira but we as readers question if his proximity to blackness is purely good intentioned or is he trying to overcompensate to feel cool, “I probably thought the black kids in high school were much cooler than the white ones.” (225) Reid who herself is married to a White man, does not believe all white men who date black women are simply fetishising them but instead question the difficult questions black women place on themselves particularly the power dynamics of class.

At Thanksgiving we learn about Alix and Kelley’s shared history, it’s left them deeply resentful of each other. I culminates in a contest of ‘Which One of Us Is Actually More Racist’, and Emira is the pawn. “If you’re still okay fetishizing black people like you did in high school, fine. Just don’t pull that shit with my sitter.” (224) Again we see that Emira is devalued and not treated as a human but a trophy to win, and whoever wins her is the least racist. A competition to be more ‘woke’ than the other, an opportunity to tokenise Emira. She will only ever be seen as a caricature of ‘blackness’ for the white people around her, she is the poor black friend who needs to be saved by the white saviour. Thus, is why Alix eventually releases the tape. Alix and Kelley are not insidious villains however, they are results of larger systemic issues of race in America. Such a Fun Age dissects the fetishisation of black women and other systemic issues of micro-aggressions and unconscious bias through the white people in Emira’s life, eventually removing both Alix and Kelley from her life and instead she thinks about her time with the only person who genuinely loved her , Briar.

Bibliography:

DiAngelo, Robin. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Beacon Press, 2018.

“Kiley Reid.” The Daily Show, season 25, episode 66. Comedy Central. 2020.

Lea, Richard. Kiley Reid: ‘Some black women say: “I don’t want to explain anything.” I’m not one of them.’ The Guardian, 28^th December 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/28/kiley-reid-interested-reading-writing-world-we-live-in-debut-novelist

Reid, Kiley. Such a Fun Age. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.

‘Severance’ makes a claim that Capitalism is a flawed system which suppresses our desires by forcing participation in a system that prioritises capital value over cultural value. A system which delivers our ‘wants’ rather than our ‘needs’.

“I was like everyone else. We all hoped the storm would knock things over, fuck things up enough but not too much. We hoped the damage was bad enough to cancel work the next morning but not so bad that we couldn’t go to brunch instead.”

Ma, Ling. Severance (p. 198). The Text Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.

Through a post-apocalyptic setting, we can fantasise a hypothetical world where Capitalism has been destroyed. A common trope in such a story involves the characters coming to terms with their own needs and re-contextualising the value of work. Where Ma’s novel differs in this aspect, is by depicting the extreme circumstances as rather mundane and repetitive:

“My reflection in the computer screen stared blankly at me. I opened Outlook, which showed no new emails. I typed up an email to Michael Reitman and Carole, with the subject line elevator malfunction, that detailed my morning’s travails and the steps I took to implement a solution.”

Ma, Ling. Severance (p. 251). The Text Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.

In this passage, Candace is the only one left in her office due to the pandemic and takes it upon herself to inform the managers of an elavator malfunction. The lack of tension makes this novel stand out compared to similar apocalyptic narratives, which rely on life-threatening situations to push the narrative forward.

‘Severance’ on the other hand, sheds the narrative elements that create tension: the ‘fevered’ are of no threat to the main cast, the search for supplies is categorised as mainly inconvenient:

“I had taken to buying all my household supplies off Amazon, but the boxes, carrying anything from batteries to deodorant, took at least two weeks to deliver, whether the service was FedEx or UPS or USPS or DHL.” (247-248)

The fact that Amazon and several delivery services are still up and running undermine the precarity of the situation. Furthermore the items that are being delivered could be considered non-essential in a life or death scenario (deodrant stands out in particular when you imagine the typical, unhygenic characters in a show such as ‘The Walking Dead’).

Another key subversion of the ‘apocalypse’ genre is visible in the blurred lines between the past and present. The genre hinges on the idea of the ‘end’. However, the ‘end’ cannot be constituted without other parts of a narrative, so in a sense the apocalpyse is just as much about the ‘beginning’.

Where Ma goes in a different direction is immediately noticed in the structure of the novel: the narrative is non-linear and jumps between past and present. A common theme in the novel is one of nostalgia seeping into the present:

“The internet is the flattening of time. It is the place where the past and the present exist on one single plane. But proportionally, because the present calcifies into the past, even now, even as we speak, perhaps it is more accurate to say that the internet almost wholly consists of the past. It is the place we go to commune with the past.” (113)

If the past bleeds into the present and vice versa, then how can a post-apocalyptic narrative structure work? I believe that ‘Severance’ can be a challenging read because it lacks this clear structure, but the effect of this is an interesting commentary on the idealistic idea of a ‘post-capitalist’ world.

This is best demonstrated through Bob’s group, which could be accurately described as a cult with Bob as the authorative figure. If this group is categorised as a new beginning post-capitalism, then the outlook is remarkably dreary. An obvious example being the gender roles: “The men hunted, and the women gathered” (63) which suggests that the flaws of a capitalist system would simply repeat themselves.

Theodore Martin claims in ‘Survival: Work and Plague’ that “The sameness at the heart of survival complicates the speculative power usually accorded to the genre of post-apocalyptic fiction”. (162) I believe that in this instance, Ma has leaned more into the repetitive aspects of the survival genre and in this case it serves the speculative ideas present in the text: that whilst Capitalism is accurately portrayed in all of its flaws, there seems to be a reluctance to embrace a new style of living.

Bibliography

Ling, Ma, ‘Severance’ 2018 (Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Theodore Martin, ‘Survival: Work and Plague’ in Contemporary Drift: Genre, Historicism and The Problem of the Present (Columbia, 2017)

Ma, Ling. Severance (p. 63). The Text Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.

Ma, Ling. Severance (p. 113). The Text Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.

“One zombie can be easily killed, but a hundred zombies is another issue […] This narrative, then, is not about any individual entity, per se, but about an abstract force: the force of the mob, of mob mentality”.

ma, 29

Ideas of survival and the collective are foregrounded; both are central to Ma’s post-apocalyptic novel Severance(2018). Whilst hinting at notions of survival, Ma’s repetition of “mob” emphasises an element of susceptibility alike a herd mindset, whilst also harking towards brutal competitiveness (29). As Monbiot establishes in How Did We Get Into This Mess?, “competition and individualism, in other words – is the religion of our time” (10). Aided by Western capitalist culture, individualism – exacerbated by self-gratification and a strand of self-serving personal autonomy – have become the supreme ethos. Severance offers an at times morbid reflection of this illusionary notion of individualism. Instead, Ma suggests that the waring notion of the ‘individual’, is not actually ‘individual’ at all – and is alternatively, a composition of the collective. 

Shen Fever, an apocalyptic virus and seminal motif within the text, prospers under fundamentals of late capitalism: oblivion and repetition. Ma’s use of repetitive, forceful sentences, alike “I got up. I went to work in the morning. I went home in the evening” (150). As such, suggesting that for Candance to follow a routine, other than this, would be mindless. 

Initially, Jonathan, operates as a polarity to Candace the office drone – 

Whilst Jonathan refuses to be a cog within the system, he subsequently suffers, alike Candace. 

For Candace, working at Spectra, as a “Senior Product Coordinator of the Bibles division”, offers safety; yet safety is in exchange of self-fulfilment (Ma, 22). As Ma notes “the Bible embodies the purest form of product packaging, the same content repackaged a million times over, in new combinations ad infinitum” (23). Spectra have tapped into a nuanced market, one which is extraneously hyper-specific. Ma furthers the notion of hyper-individualism. Returning to Monbiot’s suggestions; capitalism enacts competition and individualism, whilst situating citizens as consumers (10). Individuality hinges on a desire to become a trailblazer; consumers seek out extremely niche products, alike those who purchase the Bible’s produced by Spectra. Ma writes that the Bible is “repackaged a million times”; the desire to have something unique is not truly satisfied (23). Ma furthers the waring notion of ‘individualism’, one which is repackaged and distributed to the masses. Individuals are situated within the cycle of consumption, paralleling the guise of which individuals- turned-meek zombies are lured under. 

In addition to the unyielding nature of consumerism, individuals are governed by circumstance, i.e., capitalism, and its fixation on draining labour. Fisher writes in Capitalist Realism (2008), 

Ma’s narrative raises the question, is it possible to ‘sever’ ties and exist outside the ant farm, or rather, the zombie farm? 

Whilst operating within the ‘ant farm’ in terms of labour and consumer culture, Candance is immune from becoming a zombie. She is positioned as an outsider. Bob questions Candace’s place within the group, stating “Do you think we’re the right fit for you?” (Ma, 32). Here, Ma situates Candace’s position within the band of survivors as something unstable, in an already precarious environment. In doing so, Ma harks towards ideas surrounding identity and migration. 

Shen Fever is triggered by nostalgia – feelings of belonging are dangerous. Alike Ma, Candace immigrated to the US from China at a young age. Both of Candace’s parents have died, exacerbating her already detached relationship with China. Yet, Candace’s relationship with New York is also fraught. Ma writes “New York has a way of forgetting you” (151). Candace’s parted relationship with New York is further reflected in the name of her blog, “NY Ghost” (14). Candance is positioned as an outsider and an observer. As such, reflecting the ‘othering’ of immigrants. As Powell notes in ‘Us vs them’, othering “is largely driven by politicians and the media, as opposed to personal contact. Overwhelmingly, people don’t ‘know’ those that they are Othering” (n.p). The harmful sentiment which renders certain identities, i.e., East Asian / Asian Americans, as non-viable. 

Ma humanises the reality of those who are continually ‘othered’, centring fiction as a means of breeding empathy. Fiction, alike Ma’s, explores the pathology of different identities and existences. Within ‘The Doom and Glory’, James Baldwin writes, “It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive” (n.p). By depicting the experience of the daughter of 1^st generation immigrants, Ma humanises the experience. Fiction refutes the weaponizing of migrants’ identities. Whilst individuals are forged as a mass, Severance recognises the individuality of experience. Yet, Ma encourages the fostering of a unifying empathetic connection, through the recognition of multiplicity. 

Ultimately, Ma dispels the capitalist-led and bred notion of individualism, and instead favours a more empathetic, collective, and restorative stance. 

Word Count: 999

Bibliography

Primary Resources

Ma, Ling. Severance. 2018. Text Publishing. 2020. Print.

Secondary Resources

Baldwin, James. ‘The Doom and glory of Knowing Who You Are’. Life Magazine, May 24, 1963. 

Fan, Jiayang. “Ling Ma’s “Severance” Captures the Bleak, Fatalistic Mood of 2018.” The New Yorker, 10 Dec. 2018, www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/ling-ma-severance-captures-the-bleak-fatalistic-mood-of-2018. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023.

Fisher, Mark. Capitalism Realism: Is There No Alternative? 2009. Zaro Books. pp.15. Print. 

Monbiot, George. How Did We Get Into This Mess? Politics, Equality, Nature. New Left Books, 2016. Print. 

Powell, John A. “Us vs Them: The Sinister Techniques of “Othering” – and How to Avoid Them.” The Guardian, The Guardian, 30 Nov. 2017, www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/08/us-vs-them-the-sinister-techniques-of-othering-and-how-to-avoid-them. Accessed 20 Nov. 2023.

In a digital era where feminism has gained spectacular visibility (think hashtag activism, feminist slogans on t-shirts), you might be tempted to believe that feminism has evolved into an all-inclusive movement. Well, Kiley Reid begs to differ. Her 2019 novel, Such a Fun Age, pokes fun at the performative nature of white female ‘wokeness’ while also exposing its insidious underbelly–it highlights how popular feminism prioritises the white, middle-class experience. This preoccupation, Reid slyly suggests, threatens to silence and make invisible the voices and experiences of women of colour.

“”I’ll call her father and he can come down here. He’s an old white guy so I’m sure everyone will feel better'”

“The security guard pointed a finger at her face. ‘I am speaking to the child‘”

14

What ensues is what Alix mentally terms a game called “Which One of Us Is Actually More Racist” (228) or as one reviewer from The New York Times puts it: “white liberal anxieties play out in a tug-of-war for Emira’s affections”:

“’Emira deserves to know who she’s dating.” No, you know what, Alex?’ Kelley leaned forward with one arm on the table. ‘Emira deserves a job where she gets to wear her own fucking clothes.'” 

227

Here, the presumptious attitude of Alix and Kelley as they dictate what they believe is best for Emira reveals the superficial nature of white allyship. By excluding Emira from a conversation that directly concerns her, the white characters inadvertanely reinforce Banet-Weiser’s proposition that popular feminism “refuses intersectionality, and often erases and devalues women of color” (13-14).

“neoliberal feminism is one in which the values [of] neoliberalism—ever-expanding markets, entrepreneurialism, a focus on the individual—are embraced, not challenged, by feminism”

Banet-Weiser 11-12

Such a Fun Age locates this wave of entreprenurial feminism firmly within the digital realm. Reid satirises the rise of the white female entrepreneur to Instagram fame through Alix who “earn[s] another thousand followers” after “Small Business Femme” posts an Instagram photo of Alix breastfeeding onstage, captioned “Find You a Woman Who Can Do Both” (29).

On the other hand, Emira remains invisible within this digital world: “oh no, I don’t have Instagram” (Reid 135). Emira’s lack of an online presence therefore positions her distinctly outside the sphere of popular feminism, a movement that relies on online platforms to desseminate messages of female empowerment.

It is ironic then that Alix’s feminist slogan, #LetHerSpeak, actually serves to disempower Emira in the novel–we learn that Alix’s slogan, like her name, is phony. Alix’s suggestion that Emira wear one of her “white LetHer Speak polos” while babysitting not only carries racial undertones of white ownership and black subservience but it also reduces Emira to a tokenistic accessory; a living embodiment of Alix’s supposedly inclusive brand (Reid 49).

Tokenism intensifies as the novel progresses, culminating in a television interview where Alix exploits Emira as a passive prop to endorse her company. During the interview, Emira is thrust into the ‘spotlight of visibility’ and her trauma is transformed into a marketable commodity:

“Emira embodies much of the spirit in my business LetHer Speak,” she said. “Not only did she stick up for herself, but she listens to herself, and this is exactly the kind of person Peter and I want around our girls”

285

Yet, in the cathartic final pages of the novel Emira reclaims her verbal power. Leveraging her newfound visibility, Emira hits Alix where it hurts–her public image–and denies Alix and the wider media the opportunity to monetise her trauma:

“I will not actually be joining the Chamberlains full-time? Or like… at all […] it would be best if we go our seperate ways and our paths… never like came back together.”

285-286

Through its exploration of everyday racial microaggressions, Such a Fun Age urges its readers, especially its white readership, to consider the ways in which we wield our voices, or in this new digital age, our keyboards, to inadvertently marginalise the experiences of women of colour. Ultimately, Reid advocates for more equitable spaces, both online and offline, in order to amplify, rather than silence, diverse voices.

Bibliography

Banet-Weiser, Sarah. Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny. London: Duke University Press, 2018.

Canfield, David. ‘Kiley Reid has written the most provocative page-turner of the year’. Entertainment Weekly, 2019.

Christensen, Lauren. ‘When It Comes to Race, How Progressive Are the Progressives?’. The New York Times, 2019.

Reid, Kiley. Such a Fun Age. Dublin: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019.

The US government ignored prior warnings of the 9/11 attacks, to justify their subsequent Middle East invasions. ‘Climate change’ is a political (particularly Democrat) invention used to garner financial or ideological support. Medical vaccines are poisonous, causing fatal adverse effects, and are thus used to depopulate the earth. US mass shootings are staged performances to enforce gun control laws in governmental attempts to acquire deeper societal control.

These are but a few of the dangerous conspiracy theories that remain popular within twenty-first century discussions, believed by disconcertingly large quantities of individuals.

Many such conspiracies are upheld in America, by groups believing their government to be “…hijacked by external/foreign powers … looking to promote a ‘New World Order’,” whilst holding: “In order to facilitate this [Order] … the government is interested in undermining the power of those who oppose it, by eroding constitutional rights,” (Sweeney & Perliger 54). Throughout his graphic novel Sabrina, Nick Drnaso alludes to real contemporary events that bred conspiracies, also creating his own conspiracy around a fictional murder. In doing so, he profoundly demonstrates the psychological instability of those who promote harmful theories surrounding traumatic events, and the damage they cause to their irrational accepters.

Within Sabrina, we witness the lives of Calvin and Sandra become harmed by conspiratorial speculations, receiving threats like: “Someone should kill you,” (120) and: “Your address is online[,] … I’m armed and protected. See what happens if they … test me,” (155) as Sabrina’s existence becomes questioned. While each suffer greatly, Teddy (Sabrina’s partner) falls most susceptible to the effects of conspiracy throughout, becoming both a target of the paranoid mob and a succumbing absorber of its deluded mentality.

Someone is at fault. Someone is scheming and capitalizing big time. To … expose the conspirators for the thieving murderers they are; that is my vocation.

Douglas’ Conspiratorial Voice (p.89)

Many conspiracy theories seem “…product[s] of mental illness,” with “…some people who accept [them being] mentally ill and subject to delusions,” (Sunstein & Vermeule 211) which relates to Teddy. Following his introduction, I sympathise with Teddy’s grief-induced sombreness and unwell, dishevelled constitution. His digressions from silence (13), vomiting (37), and nightmares (46) into nervous exhaustion (52) factor into his susceptibility to the neurotic conspiracies of Albert Douglas, voiced on the radio. Douglas characterises an unhealthy conspiracist, discussing “…doomsday predictions,” and “…a global dictatorship,” whilst claiming: “Our masters will flee to their compounds, leaving us to endure unimaginable plagues…” (88). Not coincidentally, such provocative language resembles that of contemporary right-wing conspiracists like Alex Jones and the QAnon movement.

Throughout Sabrina, Douglas’ voice acts supernaturally, being both “…disembodied,” and “…omnipresent,” (Jacobs 72). Ironically, this demeanour transforms Douglas into his worst fear – a malevolent composer that “…stir[s] the pot, to keep [people] separate, suspicious, and hostile,” (88). Relatedly, Oliver and Wood highlight how many Americans “…consistently endorse some kind of conspiratorial narrative about a current political event … [with their] attitudes [being] predicted by supernatural … sentiments,” (953). Such sentiments often revolve around a battle of free humanity against a corrupt, enslaving force, presumably having “…seeds in the fall of the Twin Towers,” (Park §7) highlighted through Drnaso’s allusion to the event. Douglas incites this paranoia, arguing society will have “…defenceless groups of people being shepherded together, and … completely dependent on those in control,” (138) psychologically hauling Teddy into his state of mind. In this sense, Douglas becomes the “…spokesman of the paranoid style,” who “…finds [the conspiratorial world] directed against a nation, a culture, a way of life whose fate affects not himself alone but millions of others,” kindling Teddy’s devolution into a “…clinical paranoic,” that “…sees the hostile and conspiratorial world … as directed specifically against him,” (Hofstadter 4).

Although Douglas claims Sabrina’s murder to “…ha[ve] all the hallmarks of the [routine] staged tragedies,” (108) Teddy remains susceptible to his suspicions. However, notably: “…most people will only express conspiracist beliefs after they encounter a conspiratorial narrative that gives ‘voice’ to their underlying predispositions, assuming the particular incident was unusual … enough to invoke these feelings,” (Oliver & Wood 955) which applies to Teddy. Douglas discusses how he “…[doesn’t] believe … that Sabrina … was murdered by Timmy Yancey,” while posing: “For all we know, she’s alive in bondage somewhere … [or] [m]aybe forces too evil to comprehend did in fact murder [her],” (117) thereby provoking Teddy’s irrationality on two levels. Firstly, Teddy holds onto the possibility that Sabrina is alive, being kept in an area like the referenced “…black site,” (132). On the other hand, Teddy believes that Sabrina’s murder may have been performed by such veiled, heinous figures as described. This highlights the complex nature of conspiracism with trauma, with Teddy’s denial and longing for explanation contributing to his gullible vulnerability.

Eventually, his mistrust peaks, as Douglas’ ‘warnings’ of “…troops … announc[ing] a state of emergency … [and] shut[ting] down the power grid … [thus] keep[ing] the population under control,” (138) take thorough effect, leading Teddy to steal a kitchen knife for protection (135). Thus, through Teddy, Drnaso shows the parasitic nature of conspiracy, particularly within fixated, traumatised, and isolated individuals.

Thankfully, Teddy eventually switches off the radio, and begins reading an academic book designed for children (145). In this humorous implication, Drnaso suggests that there is more educational value in a children’s book than in such ramblings as Douglas’. Despite Teddy’s somewhat contented ending, however, we are left sympathising with those affected by the conspiracy, as Sandra and Calvin remain threatened and isolated, personifying melancholy.

Ultimately, Sabrina warns us to reject catastrophic conspiratorial perspectives, and to instead focus on empathy, rationality, and community. Can empathy be felt for Douglas himself, however? We see remnants of his humanity remain, unashamedly stating: “Thanks for giving me strength, mom. I love you,” (89). Furthermore, he “…served in the army during the Gulf War,” (121) perhaps being similarly traumatised, yet unable to escape the conspiracy cesspit before it consumed him. While this doesn’t justify Douglas’ scaremongering, it certainly sends Drnaso’s ambiguous text into deeper levels of interpretability. Maybe, to avoid being similarly seduced by conspiracies in our volatile contemporary period, we should heed Sabrina’s advice to “…get away from the internet,” (8) and preoccupy our minds with rewarding, satisfactory activities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY SOURCE

Drnaso, Nick. Sabrina. Granta Publications, 2018.

SECONDARY SOURCES

Hofstadter, Richard. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays, Vintage Books, New York, United States of America, 1967, pp. 3–40.

Jacobs, Rita D. “Review: Sabrina by Nick Drnaso.” World Literature Today, vol. 96, no. 6, 2018, pp. 72–73.

Oliver, J. Eric, and Thomas J. Wood. “Conspiracy Theories and the Paranoid Style(s) of Mass Opinion.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 58, no. 4, Oct. 2014, pp. 952–966.

Park, Ed. “Can You Illustrate Emotional Absence? These Graphic Novels Do.” The New York Times, 31 May 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/books/review/nick-drnaso-sabrina.html. Accessed 14 Nov. 2023.

Sunstein, Cass R., and Adrian Vermeule. “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures.” The Journal of Political Philosophy, vol. 17, no. 2, 2009, pp. 202–227.

Sweeney, Matthew M., and Arie Perliger. “Explaining the Spontaneous Nature of Far-Right Violence in the United States.” Perspectives on Terrorism, vol. 12, no. 6, Dec. 2018, pp. 52–71.

The novel opens with Alix’s harried phone call to Emira asking her to babysit Briar. She calls despite knowing that at 11pm on a Saturday night, twenty-five-year-old Emira is likely to be reluctant to work. Alix utilises their economic disparity as leverage by promising to pay her double and cover the taxi fares. 

“It was almost astonishing that Emira’s daily babysitting job […] could interrupt her current nighttime state […] But here was Mrs Chamberlain at 10:51p.m., waiting for Emira to say yes”. (3) 

The transitive verb of “waiting” coupled with the incentive of increased pay, highlights Mrs Chamberlain’s expectation – knowing that Emira needs the money, she utilises her privilege to her advantage. Later, the reader discovers the reason for the call is that an egg has been thrown at the window in reaction to Mr Chamberlain’s clumsy speech (32). This domestic “emergency” seems trivial and ironic considering the racist altercation that subsequently occurs at Market Depot. 

The Standard. Zainab Shafqat Adil The Standard | ‘Such a fun age’ examines subconscious racism (asl.org)

The novel opens with the shocking racial confrontation and accusations of kidnap at Market Depot but, as Berlant writes in Cruel Optimism, “the extraordinary always turns out to be an amplification of something in the works.” (10). This immediately sets a precedent that will occur repeatedly – the white, entitled employer expecting Emira to adapt to her changing whims; from working additional days so Alix can visit her friends in New York (141) or buying a last-minute replacement fish (117). All in a day’s work or taking advantage of her employee? 

“And of course you sent Emira to a super-white grocery store, at midnight, and expected everything to be okay.” (228) 

The line “And of course” spoken by Kelley sums up the characterisation of Alix. She is “well-heeled, arguably well-intentioned, yet entitled, and ignorant about realities outside her own world.” (Haider). Alix exudes privilege and white feminism; seemingly oblivious to possible outcomes of her actions (Haider). Reid displays this by presenting; on consecutive pages, the racist altercation at Market Depot and Alix’s effortless career progression: 

“Alix asked nicely for the things she wanted, and it became a rare occurrence when she didn’t receive them”. (20) 

Despite her ability to pay for products, Alix with her marketing degree, expensive stationery and “editorial” image expects (and freely) receives attention and products. Conversely, Emira (predominantly beyond her control) fluctuates between being invisible or hyper-visible. 

The novel centres on discussions of perception and constructed selves (Crawford); how we view ourselves, how we want others to perceive us, and the ways in which we present ourselves accordingly. Throughout the novel, Emira’s true personality conflicts with the racially-charged profile that Alix has created around her. This is evidenced by Alix’s surprise at Emira’s advanced vocabulary which to her seems incongruous with Emira’s usual slang and music tastes (79). Alix has created a one-dimensional depiction of how she feels Emira should act. However, even more unsettling is Reid’s exposure of the way the characters relate to themselves (Crawford). This is evident through Alix’s desire to prove herself even in her own subconscious. 

“(O)ne of Alix’s closest friends was also black. That Alix’s new and favourite shoes were from Payless, and only cost eighteen dollars. That Alix had read everything that Toni Morrison had ever written.” (139) 

The accumulative list coupled with Alix pretending to eat leftovers and “accidentally” having spare food, raises questions of performativity. Her fascination with Emira is one of narcissistic projection – she wants Emira to see the most progressive and (she believes truest) version of herself (Hayes).  However, Alix is playing a part, one that she can step away from at any time and continue living her affluent and privileged lifestyle. Alix’s fixation on herself blinds her to seeing Emira as an individual (Hayes). Instead, she only ever views her through the black-oriented lens that she has created. 

Slate. Laura Miller. https://slate.com/culture/2020/01/such-a-fun-age-book-review.html

The title “Such a Fun Age” is notable and has three possible meanings (Masad). It could refer to Briar’s toddler years or to Emira as she struggles with the joys and challenges of being on the cusp of independent adulthood (ibid). However, this “fun age” could also be our own contemporary era (ibid).    Masad writes that we live in an age which requires “certain people- often those already more vulnerable to exist in specifically politically correct ways while letting others- usually, those with power and privilege- off the hook” (ibid). This is captured poignantly when Kelley tries to convince Emira to release the Market Depot video to shame Alix. Emira refuses, stating, “her life wouldn’t change at all. Mine would.” (193). Emira is aware that Alix’s social status and economic position means that society will never truly vilify her nor the security guard. Instead, despite Emira being there on Alix’s instruction, Emira would be judged as being dressed ‘inappropriately’ or being ‘confrontational’. 

Similarly, the ending highlights the legacy of privilege. When Emira unexpectedly observes the family on the street, she does so from a detached distance that was not feasible while working for them (304). She recognises that nothing about Alix has changed – she continues to favour her youngest daughter and exudes entitlement (305). Many years later, Emira still struggles with the impact this privileged upbringing will have on Briar: “if Briar ever struggled to find herself, she’d probably just hire someone to do it for her” (305). Emira concludes; with a hint of bitterness, that life will inevitably come easier to Briar with her inherited privilege and social standing.  

Bibliography 

Primary Sources 

Berlant, Lauren. Cruel Optimism (Duke University Press, 2011). Canvas. 

Reid, Kiley. Such a Fun Age (Bloomsbury, 2019). 

Secondary Sources 

Crawford, Maria. “Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid – a dazzingly clear-eyed debut”. Financial Times. 10 January 2020. Web. Accessed 22 October 2023. 

Haider, Arwa. “Such a Fun Age- the hit novel that skewers white privilege”. BBC Culture. 13 February 2020. Web. Accessed 22 October 2023. 

Hayes, Stephanie. “Such a Fun Age Satirizes the White Pursuit of Wokeness”. The Atlantic. 8 January 2020. Web. Accessed 22 October 2023. 

Masad, Ilana. “Such a Fun Age Is a Complex, Layered Page-Turner”. NPR. 28 December 2019. Web. Accessed 22 October 2023.  

By Fleur Howe

“With all due respect, you don’t look like you’ve been babysitting tonight.”

Appearance and dress underpin Emira’s social power, and lack thereof, in Kiley Reid’s novel Such a Fun Age (2019). Accused of kidnapping the child she babysits, Emira is told she does not ‘look’ like a babysitter. Calling to question what a babysitter is supposed to look like – or rather how a woman of colour is expected to present herself. It is undeniable that Emira was accused not just because she was with a white child at night, but because she was not dressed in ‘uniform’. This incident signifies a not so micro, microaggression that results in ‘constant reminders that you don’t belong, that you are less than, that you are not worthy of the same respect that white people are afforded’ (Oluo, 165).

“She wouldn’t have gotten in trouble that night if she’d been wearing uniform.”

(Reid, 228)

Uniform not only represents the black woman’s necessity to be presentable, but also represents the not so invisible traces of slave relations. Alix dresses Emira in a uniform with the family name on it to instate a sense of ownership over her child’s babysitter. ‘At least I’m not still requiring a uniform for someone who works for me so I can pretend like I own them’(Reid, 227), Emira is branded with her employers name in a display that labels her as acceptable or safe to the kind of privileged white people that harassed her when she was not in uniform. For the ‘shabby black person might be read as dishevelled, wild and threatening’ (Dabri 2019, 26). Out of uniform, in her own clothes Emira is threatening because she is not visibly white or white-adjacent to her employer.

Equally, Emira’s uniform signifying her as property underpins the class and wealth disparity between her and her white employers, a disparity which ‘reveal[s] the effects of accumulated inequality and discrimination, as well as differences in power and opportunity, that can be traced back to the inception of the United States’ (Dabri 2021, 122). Alix is ironically aware, and embarrassed of presenting her privilege in front of Emira ‘she took the tags off clothes and other items immediately’, ‘Alix no longer felt comfortable leaving out certain books or magazines’ (Reid, 138). She hides her spending habits as if hiring Emira is not in itself a signifier of her privilege. Their relationship portrays this engrained power imbalance and is emblematic of slavery in the United States, Alix’s childhood home even being described as having ‘plantation columns standing out front’ (Reid, 108). Alix effectively owns Emira, her poor attempt at closing the class barrier between them by hiding her expenses only signifies Alix’s lack of accountability, not her allyship or sympathy towards her black employee.

Emira is plagued by the necessity for the black woman to be constantly presentable. Tamra, Alix’s friend is condescending towards Emira about her braids ‘I’m guessing you’re afraid to go natural’ (Reid, 164) While Tamra is, from her perspective, supporting Emira’s right to wear her hair in its natural state; Tamra is simultaneously highlighting her ignorance and privilege by insinuating Emira’s fear of wearing her natural is purely cosmetic. Emira is not granted the privilege to appear anything but acceptable in the eyes of a white person, the conflict in the supermarket asserts this as fact.

Whilst being shabby makes Emira a threat, Alix pretends to be less wealthy ‘pretending – in front of Emira – that she was about to eat leftovers’, highlighting how ‘the carefree insouciance of shabbiness does not invoke the same social costs for a white person: their lack of effort will be afforded a value perhaps elevated to chic’(Dabri 2019, 26). Alix’s pretence is an attempt to lower herself to be closer to Emira’s social standing, but in doing, so she affirms that she views Emira as lesser.

Emira’s boyfriend Kelley is has an ignorant understanding of racial discrimination, his limited perspective leads him to think about race only when he witnesses discrimination. Emira asks him to ‘remember we have different experiences’ (Reid, 194) his outrage at her uniform highlights this. His comment ‘You should get to wear your own clothes with people who deserve you’(Reid, 190) is ignorant to how when she wears her own clothes she is subjected to oppression and harassment. Emira’s uniform represents the inescapable necessity to present herself in a certain way, a way a white man cannot understand. ‘The white body is not subject to the same regulatory procedures as the body racialised as black’ (Dabri 2019, 26) Kelley goes to work in a ‘t-shirt’, and ‘will never have to even consider working somewhere that requires a uniform’ (Reid, 191) Not only does Kelley not have to work a lower wage job like Emira, but he does also not have to uphold a certain presentability to be respected. Even for Emira’s birthday she is gifted ‘interview shirts’ (Reid, 234) from her friend, indicating that no matter the job, no matter her position she will still have to uphold a certain white-pleasing appearance.

The conflict that underpinning the entire novel is the representation of the conjunction between microaggressions and appearance. The relationship between presentability and the perception of black people as inherently threatening and unprofessional. Dabri argues that ‘until white people are prepared to see us as ‘innocent’ … racism is present’ (2021, 121), asserting that no matter what Emira does, she is not innocent in the eyes of a white person. Emira therefore highlights that to be safe, and be considered safe, she must present herself as white normative, or owned by a white person.

Works Cited:

Primary:

Kiley Reid, Such a Fun Age. Bloomsbury, 2019. Print

Secondary:

Dabiri, Emma. Don’t Touch My Hair. Penguin Books, 2019. Print

Dabiri, Emma. What White People Can Do next: From Allyship to Coalition. Penguin Books, 2021. Print

Oluo, Ijeoma. So You Want to Talk about Race. BASIC Books, 2020. Print

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/books/review/such-a-fun-age-kiley-reid.html