Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
“Is this what growing into an adult woman is—having to predict and accordingly arrange for the avoidance of sexual harassment?”
Queenie Jenkins is a 25-year-old Jamaican-British woman living in London. The story follows Queenie after a break-up with her long-term white boyfriend, Tom, and she really suffers in the fallout of it. But although the novel is framed by this breakup, it is not a love story, nor a tale of heartbreak; it is a novel about mental health in the modern world.
At first it seems that Queenie, despite her blackness, experiences acceptance and equality especially through her job as a writer at a national newspaper and her now ex-boyfriend who is white. But as the story progresses cracks start to appear. Members of staff at the newspaper constantly reject her story ideas on Black Lives Matter events and incidents. Flashbacks of her past relationship describe various scenes where racist comments were flung at her from Tom’s family, but he consistently refuses to defend her – “they are only joking”.
However, the themes of race and racism are very much on the backburner compared to the story of Queenie’s mental health and her inevitable breakdown. Following her and Tom’s breakup, Queenie spirals and invests way too much energy and time into boys that treat her horribly, using her body for their own pleasure and have little interest in her as a person. She is late to work most days, doesn’t actually seem to get much work done, she treats her friends like her own personal therapists – not often stopping to ask how they are – and finds herself in an extremely negative space. But regardless of her treatment of her friends in her darkest times, the theme of female support and friendship is significant in this novel.
Some online reviews have brandished Queenie for being a negative role model, as she repeatedly has unprotected sex, doesn’t try particularly hard at her job and treats her friends poorly at times. But it is for all of these reasons that she is the perfect role model. Queenie is a real, flawed character, who is worth celebrating because absolutely no one is perfect; she is a modern woman searching for purpose and meaning in modern Britain.
The friendships and relationships that Queenie does keep are the ones that matter the most. Reading of her relationships with her grandparents, her auntie and cousin, and her mum provide beautiful depictions of the everyday, ‘normal’ conversations and familial life. One of the most poignant parts is where Queenie decides to go to therapy and she talks about her decision with her staunchly traditional, Jamaican grandparents. Her grandfather, who is usually pretty quiet and spends his time pottering about in the shed, shares some words of wisdom with Queenie that resonated with her strongly.
Queenie has been dubbed the modern Bridget Jones’ Diary, but do not take this at face value. If you are reading to be uplifted then you may be disappointed with the constant confrontation of social and political issues, for example racism and gentrification. Carty-Williams uses the narrative to remark on widely felt issues across London, like what happened to that old Caribbean bakery in Brixton Village? Why is there a burger bar in its place? Whilst this novel is still funny and will make you laugh, it is also a glaringly stark portrayal of modern life, sex, race and friendship. Do not let the accessibility of Carty-William’s writing put you off looking deeper and reflecting on the social issues that it discusses.
#FLODown: Queenie has just been added to the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020’s Longlist, and it is up for a whole host of other awards. The High Low podcast has a great episode titled ‘Separating the Intrinsic from the Extrinsic; and An Author Special with Candice Carty-Williams’ (26/02/2019) which is well worth a listen too for an in-depth interview with Queenie’s creator!
Words by Mollie Kate Cohen
