But the Girl

But the Girl is the latest in a series of Australian writers using fiction to tackle family history and legacy skilfully. It’s as much about the present state of the creative and academic world as it is about the past and the conditions that brought ‘Girl’ and her family to where they are now. Our protagonist, known only as ‘Girl’, is a PhD student, en route to Scotland for an artist’s residency. On this retreat, she is supposed to write an immigrant, or post-colonial novel, as she pitches it to her supervisor – ‘immigrant’ doesn’t have the same academic allure. She’s dedicated her entire life to academia, specifically the works of Sylvia Plath, a decision she’s constantly reckoning with throughout the novel. Plath is bold, assured, dazzling and vulnerable, all things that Jessica Zhan Mei Yu herself emulates, but Girl is burdened by.

Girl is a Chinese-Malaysian immigrant living with her family in Melbourne. As the story goes, her mother held on tight to her pelvic muscles the day they immigrated to Australia to ensure that Girl would have the privileges of this country. These decisions, ambitions and, ultimately, expectations, embody the desperation and hard work to get Girl to where she is today, but also trap her and plague her every choice. Australia is cruel and academia crueller. Despite being free at last on her residency, Girl can do anything but write, instead drifting back home through memories of her family and the works of Plath.

Yu has created a love and hate letter to academia, to the labour of being a woman of colour in creative industries, and to the intricate webs of sorrows and joys spun by families. But the Girl is a contemporary novel at its finest: witty and seemingly meandering, but deeply poignant and skilful in its dissection.