This is the story of a woman of colour trying to find her way in a white, patriarchal profession and city. Jade is a mixed-race lawyer working for a large London firm. She and a friend are the few non-white faces in the company. Her partner, Kit Campbell, is part of an old-boy network. (Kit has been given clever signifiers of class: rugby rather than soccer, etc.) And, of course, Jade isn’t her birth name – it’s a ‘Starbucks name’, an Anglicised version of the name given to her by her Turkish father and Korean mother. The name change is indicative of trying to fit in, and the narrative follows her as she begins to realise how much of her identity has been sublimated in the process.
Jade is seated next to a partner at the firm’s celebratory dinner. His creepy desire to bed her places her in an unenviable position. She drinks too much in response and is taken home by an associate, Josh. She wakes in her own bed, but finds she’s naked and has bruises on her thighs. Her memory is blank.
Sex with Kit is painful and she seeks medical attention where it’s revealed she has a vaginal haematoma. She was raped by her colleague, but she’s unsure of her next moves. This is complicated by Kit’s suspicion that the sex was consensual and part of an affair.
This is the powerful story of gender, class, race and sexual dynamics. Jade symbolises the lack of power held by women generally, and women of colour in particular. She dissects her work and personal life and finds she has ‘set herself on fire to keep [a man] warm’.
Reviewed by Bob Moore
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ela Lee is a London-based author. She studied Law at the University of Oxford and previously practised as a City lawyer. During the pandemic, Ela decided to focus on her love of writing and began work on her debut novel, Jaded, that explores themes of consent, race, and identity.
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