"Maybe there were no new stories, only your story. But what did the real story even matter, when most people judged you based on the shallowest surfaces?" In her smart and provocative debut novel, White Ivy, Susie Yang explores the subject of privilege through the character of Ivy Lin, a second-generation Chinese-American desperate to cash in on the great American dream.
Desperate is a word that suits the manipulative and enterprising Ivy, whose coming-of-age story in the Boston suburbs proves a multifaceted, riveting read. At the centre of the book is Ivy’s fascination with one all-American family, the Speyers. In high school she falls in love with son Gideon, only to have her parents mortify her at a sleepover party in his house, then relocate the family to another town. Years later she reunites with Gideon following a chance encounter with his haughty sister Sylvia. The pair begin a relationship of sorts, with the bulk of the novel leading up to their wedding day.
If the path of true love never runs smoothly, in White Ivy it is a rickety old bridge with missing steps thousands of feet over a dusty canyon
White Ivy is in many respects a conventional love story – will they, won't they – with the kind of sharp social commentary in the background that prompts comparison to the master of the form, Jane Austen. Though the backdrops are wildly different, the fundamentals are the same: outsider protagonists, class battles, excruciating social dynamics, question marks over the correct suitor and whether Ivy has the ability to figure this out.
Into the superficially happy world of adult Ivy and Gideon, a timebomb emerges in the shape of Ivy’s childhood friend (and occasional sex partner) Roux Roman. As with Ivy, Roux grew up an outsider figure – the son of a woman thought to be a prostitute – who lived by his wits on the fringes of society. Years later, he is rich and successful, boyfriend to one Sylvia, who in turn happens to have a questionably close relationship with her brother Gideon.
If the path of true love never runs smoothly, in White Ivy it is a rickety old bridge with missing steps thousands of feet over a dusty canyon. Yang is excellent at pacing and surprises, which leave the reader guessing and conflicted when it comes to the romantic decision-making. This is Austen mixed with the hyperreal sharpness of Donna Tartt.
Yang was born in China and moved to the United States as a child. She has an interesting backstory, coming to writing after a number of other fields, including a doctorate of pharmacy from Rutgers University and a tech start-up in San Francisco that has taught 20,000 people how to code. She has lived across the United States, Europe and Asia, and now resides in Britain. After studying creative writing in Tin House and Sackett Street, she wrote White Ivy, which has won critical acclaim in the States and has also been optioned for a limited series on Netflix to be produced by Shonda Rhimes.
Enlightened perspectives
Contemporary literary touchstones for White Ivy include The Leavers by Lisa Ko, Tony Tulathimutte's Private Citizens and Lillian Li's Number One Chinese Restaurant. All of these books offer shrewd, enlightened perspectives on the immigrant communities that make up so much of America's population.
The arrival of the champagne signalled permission to transition into their exuberant, sloppy selves, preceding the actual effects of alcohol
In White Ivy, Yang interweaves the stories of Ivy’s parents Shen and Han, and the fascinating history of her grandmother Meifeng, into the wider narrative. Ivy has inherited the latter’s cunning and survival skills, which come to light in short, humorous exchanges between grandmother and granddaughter. The relationship between Ivy and her parents is also related in tragicomic terms – “As with many immigrant parents, the only real wish Nan and Shen had for their daughter was that she become a doctor” – where the sense of damage is palpable beneath the humour: “That was the Chinese way: corporal punishment followed by an excess of kindness … Ivy grew like a wayward branch.”
Yang is brilliant on monied American society, with Ivy’s own greed and relentless ladder climbing adding another layer of interest. A week with Gideon’s family in their New England holiday home is full of insightful commentary on class, race and gender. A set piece over brunch with two of Gideon’s obnoxious friends, meanwhile, is related in agonising detail: “This continued for some time. Tom and Marybeth took turns speaking about each other — he in controlled rhetoric, she in quick derisive gestures. Their eyes slid back and forth between Ivy and Gideon, but never to each other … The arrival of the champagne signalled permission to transition into their exuberant, sloppy selves, preceding the actual effects of alcohol.”
The fulcrum of White Ivy is the protagonist herself whose obsession with privilege and becoming as white and American as possible leaves her feeling empty and wretched within. What she says so succinctly of another character at one stage in the book seems poignantly an insight more applicable to herself: “It was exhausting to watch someone try so hard to get such ordinary things.”
