Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen

Received from Jonathan Ball Publishers, Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Not having read Chen before, I did some light research about the author and some previous releases such as Soy Sauce for Beginners, and also came across a few reviews of her latest novel, Counterfeit, which included descriptions like ‘swift, surprising, and sharply comic’. All of which rang true for me.

It is a playful but stylish storyline aimed to facilitate strong social commentary on what goes on behind the upscale designer storefronts, as well as the Chinese factories where these luxury goods are manufactured.

Chen’s two protagonists are both intriguing, ambitious Asian-American women looking to upend this high-end market aimed exclusively at a super-wealthy minority. The novel questions not only the highly superficial layer of supposed sophistication of the designer industry but also the equally wafer-thin layer of morality at play on university campuses in the Western world.

It is when Ava Wong, a rule-abiding lawyer, mother and wife of a successful surgeon, runs into her former college roommate Winnie Fang after 20 years, that Ava’s idyllic world is turned upside down. Winnie, previously a nerdy, shy girl, is now a formidable and fashionable mogul.

An unlikely partnership between two deeply divergent women ensues when they decide to start their own counterfeit handbag scheme and proceed to build it into a global enterprise. It’s a colossal house of cards, of course, and the risks are huge. Fast-paced but carefully nuanced, Counterfeit is filled with suspense, fashion and brand gossip and offers a peek at the grimy underworld that lurks right beneath the surface.

There’s a clever twist in the tale when, in the second half of the novel, the reader is suddenly exposed to Winnie’s side of the story, which is wildly juxtaposed to Ava’s narration during the first half of the book. Much like shoppers must discern between near-exact replicas of luxury handbags and the genuine article, the reader is confronted with the difficult choice of deciding which of the women’s perceptions is true and whose is ‘counterfeit’.

A little outside of my lane, genre-wise, I must admit I found Counterfeit nevertheless entertaining, different, clever, and filled with cynical and sharp observation of the fashion industry and its shadow market.