Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan

 

Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan

published 2024

 

 

She was breathtaking in a starkly simple off-the-shoulder black linen dress, her exquisite features somehow even lovelier with her short hair dramatically slicked back and pinned with three beautiful hibiscus blossoms.

 

I loved Crazy Rich Asians, the first book from Kevin Kwan, which was a huge bestseller and was also made into a highly enjoyable film. He came up with a formula that was so clever and popular that you wondered why it hadn’t been done before – it had that feeling of something that anyone could have created, but somehow they never quite had. He is one clever writer.

His books look at wealthy upmarket Asian people, who might live in Singapore or Hong Kong, or might live in the USA or the UK. There will be a number of families who all have far too much money, beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, but still planning both to spend what they have on ludicrous social events, but also make more money, plan dynastic weddings, ruin the lives of their children, snub their neighbours, wear incredibly fancy clothes. There will be some friends or contacts who are not rich (or not rich enough) but are worthy and good-hearted.

There have been books called

Crazy Rich Asians

China Rich Girlfriend

Rich People Problems

Sex and Vanity

Lies and Weddings

So they sound like they are titles produced from a checklist, but actually they are different. And yet at the same time – the titles   do tell you what you need to know.

Irresistible, right?

And they are quite simple in some ways – there’s not much in the way of surprises, but they are very satisfying and very funny, and clever. They are full of footnotes (the only disadvantage of reading them on a Kindle – footnotes are a pain to deal with there). The books are not realistic, they are exaggerated, they are meant as satirical pictures of life, though they are portrayed with much sympathy and love. There are sideways looks at life, subjects such as racism, racial stereotyping, thoughtlessness, snobbery.

The plots are often strangely similar to classic novels: Sex and Vanity is, loosely speaking, a modern update of EM Forster’s A Room with a View. It is also largely set on the island of Capri, where the blog recently went a-visiting recently with a mysterious bestseller of yesteryear: Axel Munthe’s The Story of San Michele.

Lies and Weddings has tropes from Trollope, and character names – Dr Thorne – and a lot of plot from Framley Parsonage, subject of much recent discussion on the blog. (We have now featured four books based on this – the original, and the dragon version (obv) Tooth and Claw from Jo Walton, and Amanda Craig’s The Three Graces.)

 

I loved this, on the dangers of pretending about books:

“What’s the last book you enjoyed?” Cosima inquired.

“Let me see … yes … you know what I recently read? Lace, by Shirley Conran,” Arabella said, noticing the book jutting out on the shelf right behind Cosima’s shoulder.

“WHICH ONE OF YOU BITCHES IS MY MOTHER?” Cosima said with a sneer.

Arabella looked at her in shock. “I’m sorry?”

“I said, ‘Which one of you bitches is my mother?’ It’s the most memorable line from the book, don’t you think?”

“Yes! Yes, of course,” Arabella replied, still a bit confused.

 

I love a joke like that, and also I think it’s clear that Kwan isn’t just phoning it in, there’s no filler. Details have been worked out, descriptions are full, the brand names are the right ones. And then he’ll suddenly have a page on the artist Donald Judd – not exactly a household name. You never know what is coming next – just that it will be fun, and funny, and that eventually the nice people will win out (more or less).

I find Kwan’s books hugely enjoyable comfort reads, perfect when you want something lighter but not trivial. And maybe we can all learn something from them.

One hibiscus dress is an old fashion shot, the other is a recent dress from the shop Anthropologie. A couple of pictures of generic rich people, and a few screengrabs from the Crazy Rich Asians film, which really exemplified the Kwan aesthetic…