Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Date

Queenie felt familiar to me, as I have a friend just like her, and reading this book was a little like hearing about my mate’s exploits on one of her typical Saturday nights. But Queenie doesn’t confine her casual trysts to the weekend. She has frequent random encounters at unsuitable times with deeply predatory men who smell her insecurity and know just how to exploit it. She spends half her time hankering after these ‘men’, and the other half in a sexual health clinic, where the staff are convinced she’s in an abusive relationship. They’re not wrong. It’s with herself.

Some of the scenes in this book have a very high cringe factor. Men aren’t interested in Queenie the Person. All they see are the curves, the boobs, and the magnificent bum.

Her boyfriend, Tom, seems like a decent enough bloke on the surface, but Tom expects her to put up with racist behaviour from his uncle. ‘Why have you always got to take this stuff so seriously?’ he groans after his uncle has used the N-word during a Cluedo game. I wanted to slap him for not supporting her.

‘Why would Tom never stand up for me?’ she asks herself. ‘What would happen in ten years’ time when his uncle was saying that word, making racist jokes to our children? Would he defend them, or would they have to grow up being attacked by their own family?’

So Tom insists on a break, leaving Queenie adrift. Like all of us, Queenie just wants to be loved, but she looks for validation in all the wrong places. Why she does this gradually becomes clearer, but to elaborate only risks introducing spoilers.

What made this book so deeply satisfying and enjoyable was the characterisation and the laugh-out-loud text exchanges. There are the ‘Corgis’ i.e. Darcy’s three close girlfriends, who try giving her good advice, which she roundly ignores. Then there are the men: Tom, the gutless boyfriend, Ted from work, aka ‘Tweed Glasses’ who stalks Queenie, assuring her that ‘I’m not one of those guys who wouldn’t respect you enough not to behave properly if things didn’t work out.’ Of course, the reader knows exactly what this means, but Queenie is lonely and insecure enough to take him at his word. Adi, the creepy married minicab driver, who she texts in the middle of the night because she’s so alone. There’s also Welsh Guy. ‘On the way home, I texted Guy. He came round that night, had sex with my body twice, and left.’

The most fun the author must have had with this book was writing the characters from Queenie’s family. Her grandparents, her religious Aunt Maggie, who is also totally sold on astrology, with a wayward teenage daughter, Diana. ‘She makes me pray before every meal, Queenie,’ [Diana] moaned. ‘Even snacks! Have you ever had a packet of crisps snatched out of your hand because you didn’t thank Jesus for them first?’

Her grandmother has deep secrets, believing that pain must be borne, preferably buried deep inside where it can’t be reached. Therapy is an acknowledgement of failure, a stain on the family, and she’s dead set against Queenie working on her problems with a professional. Her taciturn grandfather eventually steps in. ‘Let her go, nuh?… Maybe if all uh we had learned to talk about our troubles, we wouldn’t carry so much on our shoulders all the way to the grave.’

The author doesn’t shy away from examining questions of race in modern Britain. The men fetishise Queenie because she’s black. Her liberal friends sometimes say things which betray a lack of thought and empathy for her daily lived experience. Queenie works for a newspaper, and wants to write serious articles about the BLM movement, but she is constantly asked to sanitise her views for a broader readership.

I found myself frequently wanting to reach through the page to shake Queenie in frustration. She has a good job, which she is perpetually on the verge of self-sabotaging. She’s intelligent and capable, but has no faith in her ability. She’s sharp, self-deprecating and funny, but squanders herself on a bunch of worthless wankers who aren’t fit to lick her boots. But even at her most self-destructive, she was utterly believable, and I found myself on Queenie’s side every step of the way.

More
articles

We use cookies to improve your experience on our site and to show you relevant advertising. To find out more read out privacy policy