I’m a Fan

Sheena Patel

““The man I want to be with wants you most when you do not want him, he prefers the chase. The point at which you become emotionally invested is the exact moment he loses interest. This is met with my own wounding where I want what doesn’t want me. He wants the consistency from a mother and not the conditionality of a lover. ”

Sheena Patel’s incandescent first novel begins with the unnamed narrator describing her involvement in a seemingly unequal romantic relationship. With a clear and unforgiving eye, she dissects the behavior of all involved, herself included, and makes startling connections between the power struggles at the heart of human relationships and those of the wider world. I’m a Fan offers a devastating critique of class, social media, patriarchy’s hold on us, and our cultural obsession with status and how that status is conveyed.

In this unforgettable debut, Patel announces herself as a dynamic, commanding new voice in literature, capable of rendering a rollercoaster of emotions and experiences viscerally on the page. Sex, brutality, politics, work, art, tenderness, humor—Patel tackles them all while making the reader complicit in the inescapable trap of fandom that seems to define the modern condition.

216 pages, Paperback

First published in 2023