You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked. by Sheung-King

Paperback, read February 2021

“Later that day, I will come to the realization that the things I do may have little bearing on events that follow. Most of the time, all there is is chance.”

I absolutely loved reading You are Eating an Orange. You are Naked. by Sheung-King, published by Book*Hug, and yet I still can’t quite put my finger on what it is I loved so much. It feels tender, gentle, but not passive at all. It is a little hurt, a little confused, a little angry, but never self-pitying – just here, always here, somehow holding space for you, the reader. This book feels like the kind of evening where you have invited your close friend over for dinner, and they stay for dessert, for drinks, for tea, and the conversation is rich and intimate and easy, and all of a sudden you are both wondering if your friend should drive home at this hour or if they should just stay over. This book stays over.

There is a trend in literary fiction of deeply unlikeable narrators. This is fine, existentially – it is nobody’s obligation to be likeable, and besides that, the very idea of unlikeability is absolute nonsense. I think that is why we have this trend: it is an objection to the idea that anyone ought to be any certain way. In recent CanLit particularly, flawed narrators are revered. Hell, I wrote one too. I love a good messy main character. But what I dislike is indulgence (literally just a personal opinion on narrators, not a judgment on people), and I find so many flawed narrators are also deeply self-indulgent. The self-indulgence yields fascinating character studies and insights, and I love watching these tortured, intellectual brains tick, but I lose interest in the lives of these stories. Sheung-King’s debut finds a balance that feels custom-made for me: a narrator who is himself interesting and thoughtful, but generally quiet, and who is in love with the messy, ambitious genius. Her personality, as seen through him, is mystifying but captivating, and I get to be privvy to her deep, meandering insights and philosophizing, while witnessing her through a lens of awe and admiration.

You are Eating an Orange. You are Naked. is exquisitely balanced, and in being such is deeply and desperately powerful. It is critical, soft, ambitious, meandering, and cautiously hopeful. It is beautiful, and I feel lucky to have read it. I hope you will too.