The Honeyeater by Jessie Tu review – this biting tale of backstabbing uber-egos will stay with you

Jessie Tu’s second novel is a searing critique of academia, but one that cleverly weaves in an exploration of skewed power dynamics, the nature of translation, and mother-daughter relationships. It is a novel that will stay with you.

Fay is a young up-and-coming translator, working in Taiwanese and English. We join Fay and her mother as they embark on a two-week group tour of France. Despite this being a trip she’s always dreamed about, Fay’s mother lives in a constant state of fearful fastidiousness, wiping down every surface in their motel rooms, and endlessly worrying about the day-to-day dangers of travel.

And even while she is on holiday, Fay uses every spare moment she has working on a novel that she hopes will launch her career as a translator. The cloyingly close relationship of the mother and daughter in this novel uncannily reflects that of Fay and her own mother.

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Fay is tortured by a recent break-up with a fellow translator, James. While in France she constantly checks her messages, and ruminates on his distant replies and log-in times. She’s the one who ended the relationship – and James does seem completely obnoxious – but Fay also still carries some sort of torch for him. She’s also on edge thanks to the mixed messages she’s receiving from her boss, an academic (and translator) at the University in Sydney known only as the Professor. She emails Fay often, and at all hours, offering advice that is often rolled up in belittling demands and subtle pressure. When the Professor’s husband goes missing and is later discovered dead, Fay is forced to confront the true nature of her relationship with James – the Professor’s dead husband.

Returning to Sydney, Fay is caught up in the intensity of the Professor’s grief. While reflecting on her affair with James, Fay observes her own tendency to use language to obscure her feelings: “‘I’m not upset,’ I say. ‘We weren’t very serious.’ I use my words to soften my own pain.”

While on the surface The Honeyeater is a novel very much engaged with the #MeToo era, and the ways these abuses of power work in the world of academia, the underlying reflections on the nature of translation give Tu’s novel a mysterious conceptual depth. What is lost when we move between languages – and between the truth of our interior selves and the masks we wear in public?

Related: Jessie Tu: ‘I will probably never read another novel by a straight white male’

Tu writes anxiety and paranoia incredibly well. Early in the novel, page after page of prose is structured to convey monotony, Fay constantly checking her phone, as the same anxious thoughts circle around and around. At an academic conference, Tu deftly captures Fay’s paranoid state: every question from the audience is a veiled menace, or a possible revelation. A scene where Fay is interviewed by the police about James’s death is excruciating.

Tu’s portrait of the brilliant power-couple, and academia in general, is scathing. Both James and the Professor are by turns vacuous, hyper-aggressive and two-faced, and they both take every advantage of Fay’s willingness to please, and to keep their secrets. Their techniques include gaslighting, threats, manipulation and blackmail.

While one or two moments in The Honeyeater seem far-fetched – James, an erratic, egotistical translator, is treated by the public like a rock-star – the world Tu builds, one of fragile uber-egos, name-dropping, virtue signalling and back-stabbing, is compelling. The dominance of both whiteness and the global north in this academic setting are powerful undercurrents, and expertly handled.

Over and over, the stifling closeness of all of the relationships in The Honeyeater made me uncomfortable, which is one of the signature effects of this book. It’s fast-paced and written with an intensity that will drive you from page to page. But it’s the themes Tu explores – exploitation and deception – that make The Honeyeater both biting and memorable.

• The Honeyeater by Jessie Tu is published by Allen & Unwin ($32.99)