Sex and Vanity
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 | |
| Author | Kevin Kwan |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
Publication date | June 30, 2020 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 368[1] |
| ISBN | 9781786091055 |
Sex and Vanity is a satirical romantic comedy novel written by Kevin Kwan first published in 2020. It is an adaptation of E.M. Forster's A Room With a View. Centered around the romantic life of a teenager, it was written in four months. It was generally well received by literary critics. A film adaptation of the novel is in development.
Set in Capri, New York, and The Hamptons,[2] the novel details the escapades of Lucie Tang Churchill,[3] a nineteen-year-old biracial New Yorker and descendent of Winston Churchill who is engaged to Baron Cecil Pike while being wooed by Chinese Australian surfer George Zao.[2][4][5]
Development
The novel was written by Kevin Kwan, author of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy. According to Kwan, the title of Sex and Vanity came from a friend's son who had remarked about his generation: "At the end of the day, all that shit is sex and vanity and I want nothing to do with it."[6] Compared to the Crazy Rich Asians series, Sex and Vanity has a smaller cast of characters; Kwan wanted "a much simpler, more intimate story that surrounded one very fascinating young woman."[7]
Kwan wrote Sex and Vanity in four months, from October 2019 to January 2020.[8] Intended to be the first part of a new trilogy,[4] it was released on June 30, 2020, by Penguin Random House.[9][10]
Reception
The novel received generally positive reviews from literary critics. It was listed by Time as one of the "100 Must-Read Books of 2020".[5] Angela Haupt of The Washington Post described the novel as "vacuous entertainment" and that it was "all style and little substance — unfathomably expensive style, which can be gratifying for those with an appetite for rich-people problems."[11] Francesca Angelini of The Times wrote that it is "a straight-up retelling of A Room With a View",[12] whereas The New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin opined that "Sex and Vanity is what A Room With a View might have been if E. M. Forster’s characters had been micron-deep, Instagram-obsessed and unable to make conversation."[3] Writing for the Asian Review of Books, Susan Blumberg-Kason praised Sex and Vanity for being "a timely story that pokes not too gently at some of society’s less tractable flaws".[13]