BookBrowse Reviews Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

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A Chinese American starlet's coming-of-age journey, set in a wildly fantastical reimagining of Hollywood's Golden Age.

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"I wanted to change the world simply because I could," says the protagonist of Siren Queen, who charts her journey from a child extra to a Hollywood phenomenon, if not exactly a leading lady, known as Luli Wei. Nothing about Luli's identity, including her name, comes without complication. This is partly because she's a queer, Chinese American actress in author Nghi Vo's alternate-reality version of the Golden Age (1920s-30s) movie business. But as we soon find out, she's not the only one in the industry who has difficulty conforming to its standards. All performers are expected to present a certain image to the world, both on screen and in highly publicized projections of their private lives.

Siren Queen could be said to be based loosely on the life of actress Anna May Wong, similarly to how the world Luli inhabits appears to be based loosely on the world of classic Hollywood that we know. The basic dynamics are much the same — powerful men exploit ambitious women, marginalized actors are pigeonholed into roles that reinforce stereotypes, success has less to do with talent and more to do with negotiation — but Vo's symbolic enhancement of this reality invites elements of horror and grotesque magic into the mix: Studio executives have multiple skins, literal ones that can be shed. A former actress strikes a deal with Luli to help her jumpstart her career that involves drinking the girl's blood with a cup of tea. Luli eventually plays a monster in a pivotal film role, while real monsters and other supernatural occurrences blend seamlessly with humanity on sets, in studios and out in society.

The first-person narration is punchy, with a sly wit reminiscent of classic Hollywood itself — "What halfway pretty girl didn't know what the movies were?" — and a poetic edge. This consistent aesthetic, blended with the book's snappy dialogue, is at times striking in its sheer strange originality, such as in Luli's description of the living space of one Mrs. Wiley, the aforementioned blood-drinker: "There was a riot of green plants everywhere, Eden heaved onto the fourth story."

The dramatic style and fantastical details sometimes crowd out emotional substance, not giving the reader a sufficient entry point into the zigzagging motion of the plot, which covers Luli's formative experiences in Hollywood and her developing understanding of herself and her desires. This is almost inevitable, as the style is so specific as to get stretched at the edges when applied to each and every situation. But when it works in tandem with the character's moments of vulnerability and discovery, it achieves brilliance. One such beautifully written scene occurs when Luli, forced in her everyday life to keep her attraction to women hidden, visits an underground gay bar and is overwhelmed by the first-time experience of her sexuality being the default:

The entire place was veiled with something less tangible than smoke. I watched it all as if I was both in my body and floating above, the one connected to the other only by tenuous string. I sat perfectly still because I did not know what would happen if that string snapped. I was quietly in love with each and every woman in the place, and when I turned to watch my companion, I saw an edge of gold all around her, a dull gleam that warmed me and allowed me to climb back into my body.

Luli's "companion," and one of two main love interests in the book, is Tara Lubowski, a screenwriter with whom she proceeds to exchange flirtatious remarks. Luli refuses to tell Tara her name; when Tara suggests Luli doesn't need a name since there is "only one" of her, Luli points out another Chinese girl at the bar, to which Tara responds, "I meant girls as beautiful as you." Here, and at some other times, the balance of classically cheesy banter and vivid description work together supremely well to convey both a buoyantly playful mood and the intense physicality of the main character's experience — Vo's depiction of the above-mentioned scenario is arguably more erotic and emotionally charged than the book's dedicated sex scenes. So while readers may occasionally struggle to feel invested in Luli and her attempts to navigate the path to stardom, the moments that do garner investment make the journey well worth it.

In its alternate rendering of classic Hollywood, Siren Queen pays tribute to the performers whose identities were compromised or hidden at the time, and reconfigures their existence in a manner all its own.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in June 2022, and has been updated for the June 2023 edition. Click here to go to this issue.