Review: I'm a Fan

​The Line Between Fandom and Obsession is Made of Barbed Wire
​Review: I’m a Fan

​​Kelli Hughes

​Sheena Patel
Novel
Graywolf Press, pp. 216 
Cost: $17.00

Temptation, angst, and lunacy all rear their heads as Sheena Patel explores the obsession that comes with unrequited love in her debut novel I’m a Fan. The fan in question is an unnamed narrator who has wrapped herself up in an affair with an aloof, womanizing older man. Patel, an established poet, chronicles the bad decisions of the unnamed narrator through blunt but enticing prose. 

Patel puts stock into the power of fan presence, linking political influence to the number of devoted followers one has. The narrator, a woman of color with little recognition, pales in comparison to the white female influencers with whom she must compete. She speaks to privilege packaged as #goals, to algorithms and whiteness discounting indigenous and black and brown creators, and to the universal immature desire to be liked.

As the narrator vies for her lover’s attention, hoping to become his sole paramour, she develops an unhealthy obsession with his other lovers. From the very title, Patel creates a narrator who is a backdrop in her own story. The narrator is a self-proclaimed fan, stating, “I am not a main character in this ensemble romcom of betrayal, I am a supporting act” (12). This belittling assessment speaks to her self-awareness and to her lack of power in the larger world. Patel creates a sympathetic protagonist whose relatability itches uncomfortably as she reveals her ugly, innermost thoughts. The narrator knows how vulnerable she is, and how trivial she is in the eyes of the man she craves, which only fuels her desperation. ​

That desperation clashes against reality when the narrator realizes the faults of superficial followings. Patel demonstrates in a chapter titled “high” that the “love” that fanbases offer is a one-sided endorsement which becomes a shield for the worshiped to protect themselves against criticism. In the age of cancel culture, a large, vocal following is the best defense against accountability. The narrator, having no fanbase of her own, is one of the complicit masses. In a condemnation of herself, she asserts, “Every single person is implicated when a small voice is hurt by a person we pedestalled and totemised. Every single fan” (177). It is a bold claim, coming from a self-titled fan, and a sentiment the narrator battles with as she oscillates between hating and pitying the other women hurt by her lover. ​

Patel does not shy away from the paradoxical and temperamental nature of love, ego, and female solidarity. The narrator’s incongruities humanize her in a way that is in equal parts understandable and aggravating. Amplifying the whiplash felt by the narrator's conflicting emotions is the framing of the chapters in I’m a Fan. In a move that is simultaneously intriguing and narratively jarring, Patel sequences her chapters by related ideas rather than chronology. In one chapter titled “nepotism it girl,” the narrator hatescrolls through her romantic rival’s Instagram, dissolving into a spiteful, jealous-fueled wreck. The ensuing chapter, titled “a stranger in the city,” steps backwards in time to the very first night she had sex with her lover, long before she would discover her enemy. The audience learns details as they are relevant, slowly constructing a fuller picture of our narrator and the mucky situation in which she has mired herself. ​

Further complicating I’m a Fan is how Patel peppers in mini-essays throughout, essays which tango with grander concepts like authenticity, exceptionalism, and neoliberalism. While some of these departures enhance the narrator’s characterization, such as a chapter where she reflects on the 1975 performance art piece “Rhythm 0” by Marina Abramović, other chapters feel inconsistent with the rest of Patel’s writing. Patel’s attempt to create a multifaceted narrator is commendable; however, the mini-essays often feel like unrelated tangents. ​

I’m a Fan is a read quite unlike any other I’ve encountered. Through her unnamed narrator and her enticing prose, Patel portrays a very real—and very uncomfortable— expression of fandom. She exposes harmful attitudes and actions performed in fan spaces and how obsession causes us to lose ourselves. Yet, just like the unnamed narrator, readers will find themselves drawn back to the novel’s pages, diving right back into the mess of things.