The Fetishist by Katherine Min : An Event with Kayla Min Andrews. In conversation with Mesha Maren and M. Randal O’Wain

IndieNext pick for January 2024, THE FETISHIST is a blistering literary masterpiece for fans of Katie Kitamura and Viet Thanh Nguyen, about a grieving daughter’s revenge on the man who she believed caused her mother’s death and a kidnapping plot gone awry that sets off a series of unexpected reckonings. A piercing, timely story about race, femininity, complicity, and visibility, the book crackles to life with layers of social satire and psychological suspense (à la Parasite and Tàr).Min’s writing is by turns gorgeous and devastating as she renders, with astonishing (and eerie) prescience, the poignancy of grief and the anxieties of an artist at the end of their life. Her mirthful, hilariously savage voice is reminiscent of Nabokov, even as she writes against the white, male literary tradition that made his Lolita canon. And though completed before Min’s untimely death in 2019, the novel offers a meta-commentary on Asian representation and the anti-Asian hate that has embroiled the country over last several years, tackling complex and contentious issues head-on in a way that is neither reproachful nor moralizing. Anecdotally, the outpouring of love from Min’s friends and fellow writers has been extraordinary, with writers includingSusan Choi, Cathy Park Hong, and Maurice Carlos Ruffin also lined up to moderate events in other markets.