The Golden Page Turner: A Review of Sterling Karat Gold
Sterling Karat Gold is a sublime, unapologetic queer novel that hits on multiple issues of queer identities, xenophobia, transphobia, and the fascist discourse they face—told through a medium combining science fiction and surrealism. One thing the story does well is use several analogies to explore concepts in queer culture. It is a story reminiscent of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, using bewildering storytelling that prides itself on outlandish and weird scenes that force the reader to build a plot based on what they interpret, much like Kathryn Davis’s novel Duplex.
The language for the novel is excellently modern, using wordage such as “LOL” (laugh out loud) and “af” (as fuck). While many may cringe at using these in contemporary fiction, the book’s author, Isabel Waidner, does an excellent job of having it flow in the character’s thoughts. Rarely, if ever, seeping out into dialogue, ensuring that the characters don’t feel forced into being “trendy” or relatable to the current slang.
The story starts with a surrealistic setting. The protagonist of the story finds themselves in a bullfighting event. Waidner spectacularly uses this event and paces it to make the scene appear as a blur while simultaneously and successfully informing the reader of what is happening: a hate crime against the queer protagonist, Sterling. The following chapters thrust the reader into Sterling’s world as he is forced to go on an awkward trial built on the foundation that Sterling’s otherness is a threat to Britain’s society. The evidence used against Sterling is created through twisted and underhanded means that paint Sterling in a negative light. The impact of these false accounts become even more impactful when he speaks on Justin Fashanu.
Justin Fashanu, born in 1961, was a real life footballer who played for many clubs until his suicide in 1998. The novel speaks briefly but clearly about the surroundings of his controversial career that led to his death. At the start of his career, he was well-received and Britain’s first million-dollar black footballer. However, he soon faced a downward spiral due to the public outing. While the chapter about Justin Fashanu is unique, it is a chapter that shows Sterling’s admiration for the late soccer player and the opposing disappointments that he and the world have for Fashanu, and the foreboding events to come.
Speculation for the reader begins during a trial that takes place in Sterling home. The judge is carried in and out of the building in the arms of citizens that uphold the normality of society rather than the laws, even if inherently fascist. Sterling, in his queerness, is such a threat that the government provides security during the trial via spaceships that can laser him and his supporters down at a given notice. The correlation between Fashanu’s and Sterling’s story begins to reveal itself. It is an obvious comparison and potential showing of what Fashanu would face in his trial.
However, staying with weird fiction aesthetic, the evidence or incriminating acts Sterling is forced to do by detectives are goofy and baffling scenes that take you out of the story in disbelief as you wonder how it can be leveraged against him. You can’t help but find the humor in it. You are left wondering how such an idiotic tactic could work against him, but then it hits you. You are reading a story about a fascist society, where if you are seen as something threatening the order of said society, anything and everything can be used against you. Your race, your sexuality, your religion, your gender, etc. Sterling Karat Gold strives to show this in its narration of Sterling’s situation, and Waidner does so with genius tact in this oddly excellent novel.
