Most people have at least one great pursuit in their life which seems to provide a sense of purpose and belonging amongst the muck and mire in the world. Ling Ling Huang’s debut novel, Natural Beauty, asks at what lengths we’re willing to go to for the opportunity to achieve perfection.
An unnamed narrator walks away from her rising career as a piano prodigy to care for her parents after a tragic car accident leaves them mentally and physically disabled. Working odd jobs for subpar pay, the dream her parent’s had for her as Chinese immigrants having fled the Cultural Revolution have splendidly fallen apart. Struggling to make ends meet and living in a grimy basement apartment, it’s impossible to say no when a beautiful and mysterious woman offers her a job at a trendy health brand called Holistik. Wealthy patrons line up for cutting edge treatments and products promising radical change, but what Holistik is selling comes at a steep cost.
My first thought upon finishing this book was how much it reminded me of one of my favorite movies last year, The Substance. The story was surprising in the best way, twisting my mind and turning my stomach until it hurtles toward what feels like its inevitable conclusion. It doesn’t take a large stretch of the imagination to envision a world where people will go to radical or even immoral lengths to be younger, thinner, and better looking. A preoccupation shared by too many people these days. The problem is no one imagines they may turn into the cautionary tale of what happens when the pursuit of trying to become a better version of yourself bites you in the ass.
Beauty, race, and identity all intersect and interact with each other in various ways in this novel. When we first meet the narrator we learn she is something of a piano prodigy, shipped away to learn at a music conservatory where she’s shown off by teachers to rich donors and ridiculed by her racist classmates. Music is where she finds beauty, yet everyone surrounding her is only concerned with her innate talent and what they hope to gain or stand to lose from it. When she feels obligated to join the team at Holistik for the sake of financial security, she continues to feel a sense of shame cast on her for her Asian heritage as the supplements and creams she’s been given morph her into the stereotypical Western beauty. Throughout the story Huang enforces the severity of the fallout that ensues when all other forms of beauty are forsaken in the journey toward physical beauty. She asks how much of the self we are willing to lose in the pursuit of perfection. Is the only way to achieve this goal by leaving behind all that makes us unique?
What I appreciate most about this novel is its subtlety in the beginning, highlighting the daily horrors in life we’re forced to deal with then building up to the truly shocking truth behind the cutting edge procedures on Holistik’s menu of services. Through our narrator’s friendship with the founder of Holisitk’s niece, Helen, we see the grass isn’t truly greener when you have everything you could possibly want at your disposal. Body horror is utilized throughout the novel in a careful, calculated way that doesn’t feel overdone or out of place, serving to make you as the reader sit in our narrator’s discomfort as the illusion of perfection slowly melts away. It feels much like a frog in slowly boiling water realizing much too late his demise is certain.
The second half of this book felt like a fever dream I couldn’t get enough of. Ling Ling Huang weaves a devastating story of a woman I’m not quite convinced ever truly knew what she wanted. If I were to choose a weak point where this story faltered for me it would be the uncertainty surrounding the narrator’s wants and desires. Does she have any? Or is she simply going through life following the path that has been set before her by others? Overall, this was an engaging examination of ego, industry, and folly of society.
The Rummy Writer 