Review: I’m A Fan by Sheena Patel
Shortlisted for the 2023 Nota Bene Prize, I’m A Fan by Sheena Patel is a remarkable debut that encompasses social media, patriarchal systems and status anxiety into an emotionally visceral whole.
In I'm A Fan a single speaker uses the story of their experience in a seemingly unequal, unfaithful relationship as a prism through which to examine the complicated hold we each have on one another. With a clear and unforgiving eye, the narrator unpicks the behaviour of all involved, herself included, and makes startling connections between the power struggles at the heart of human relationships and those of the wider world, in turn offering a devastating critique of access, social media, patriarchal heteronormative relationships, and our cultural obsession with status and how that status is conveyed.
In this incredible debut, Sheena Patel announces herself as a vital new voice in literature, capable of rendering a range of emotions and visceral experiences on the page. Sex, violence, politics, tenderness, humour - Patel handles them all with both originality and dexterity of voice.
REVIEWED BY RUBY CONWAY
With a disproportionate amount of books tackling fandom and social media culture (considering how much it infiltrates our every day and internal lives), Sheena Patel’s I’m A Fan bravely and forthrightly tackles this liminal realm. Our interactions online lie somewhere between reality and fantasy, the darker aspects of our online behaviour are largely taboo and often shameful, coming from somewhere deep in our subconscious. It’s a sticky subject - obsession and internet stalking are not romantic; we sweep them under the rug. Patel, however, refuses to hide; she not only whips back that carpet but dismantles it, thread by thread.
This is an epic work of deconstruction - unfurling a tightly wound spool of misogyny, racism, and power dynamics upon which social media, celebrity culture and heterosexual relationships function. The novel is whip-smart and lightning-bolt fast, as the tunnel-visioned narrator grapples with her insecure relationship with ‘the man I want to be with’, and her hate-stalking infatuation with ‘the woman I am obsessed with’, who also happens to be sleeping with the same man as her.
The narrator is obsessed, envious, and disenfranchised by both parties. The ‘woman I am obsessed with’ is a rich, white influencer, who is known for her good taste and aesthetic lifestyle, ‘the man I want to be with’ a successful creative, married, emotionally unavailable and non-committal. Both have their own set of ‘fans’, they are adored by many, unaware of the privileges they were born into and continue to yield over others.
Patel’s narrator is blunt, boundariless and unhinged, accepting of her own cruelty and desires, descending into essay-like unpickings of her own situation and contemporary society. The writing is icy, sharp, and rapid; both diary-like and tweet-like with sprawling prose and chapters with titles like ‘I might look innocent but I screenshot a lot’ or ‘Viennetta really is the epitome of luxury’.The narrator seethes with anger at the system, yet she can’t help but buy into the structures that oppress her.