I'm a Fan

An unnamed narrator of South Asian heritage, living in London, compulsively stalks the Instagram of a woman she calls "the woman I am obsessed with," a verified influencer and daughter of a famous American poet. The narrator catalogs the woman's expensive tastes in candles, pottery, and artisanal goods. Both women are involved with the same man, whom the narrator calls "the man I want to be with," a prominent, married cultural figure.

The narrator visits Terroir, the woman's online store, at a pop-up in Notting Hill. It sells handmade Italian boots, artisanal gardening tools, and pearl-set gold rings at prices far beyond the narrator's means. She leaves empty-handed. The woman was not even present.

The narrator's relationship with the man is defined by deprivation. He is married, withholds his phone number, and communicates through email. He stopped sleeping with her early on, claiming the sex is "too intense," and limits their meetings to brief daytime encounters. In a park, she pins him to the grass and demands to know if they have a future. He deflects, saying the question is "too specific."

The narrator pieces together his romantic history. For a decade, he kept a relationship with a woman in Mallorca, overlapping with his affair with the woman the narrator obsesses over, which began with a kiss at an industry event while the woman's then-husband was in the next room. One Easter, he juggled three women in London simultaneously. Three weeks later, he began something with the narrator. He started cheating on his wife three years into their marriage and has not stopped.

Their relationship began with a fan email and an antagonistic first meeting. After two years of silence, she wrote again; he replied within half an hour. He proposed a "performative exercise": having sex, nothing more. At a discreet East London hotel, he confessed everything: his wife, the woman the narrator obsesses over, the woman in Mallorca. He warned her not to fall in love with him. She left at 2:30 a.m. When he texted asking if she wanted to continue, she replied: "I do." He then changed his phone number without telling her.

Over six months, they sleep together five times in hotels. She never orgasms, not feeling safe enough. Then the sex stops permanently after a family tragedy of his, and he refuses to resume it. He tells her his pride in her is like that toward a daughter. She finds herself in a celibate affair that mirrors the sexlessness of her relationship with her boyfriend, but without the kindness.

The narrator's domestic relationship is one of tenderness laced with escalating violence. Her boyfriend sears steak for her when she menstruates and helps her sleep by placing a hand on her forehead. But the narrator screams at him during outings and hits him with open hands. He pins her down, breathing slowly until she cries with remorse. Both pretend the violence does not exist.

During a period when the man ignores her, the narrator writes a love letter and mails it to his mother's approximate address, retrieved from an Uber app. The letter arrives at the wrong house and reaches his mother, who calls her son in a panic. He tells his mother he has a stalker.

The narrator pursues the Peach, a female coworker. After kissing intensely on a night out at Oval Space in East London, she takes the Peach home, but the Peach freezes, distressed about having kissed a woman for the first time. The narrator later offers the Peach to the man by sending him photos, desperate for his attention.

The narrator confides in her mother, who reveals she is not in love with the narrator's father and sees the same stale dynamic between her daughter and the boyfriend. Her mother tells her she always thought the boyfriend should have remained a friend.

The breakup arrives when the narrator loses her phone and borrows her boyfriend's old iPhone. Because the Apple devices are linked, he reads her messages with the man. He calls and says, "I know." She defiantly goes to the meeting anyway. They spend their final week separating belongings. On the last night, they lie beside each other without touching. He mouths "I love you" as he walks away. The narrator moves back to her parents' house, losing close friendships in the process.

When she tells the man she has left her boyfriend, he texts: "I hope you didn't do this because of me." Nothing changes. Her mother arranges visits to two psychics: The first says the man loves her but she is paying a karmic debt; the second warns he is merely a stepping stone. The narrator dismisses the second psychic and immediately texts the man.

He continues tantalizing her with promises followed by withdrawal. He mentions what he would say at their wedding, then claims not to remember. He pretends to put a ring on her finger, then lets months pass in silence. The narrator recognizes she is part of a "chaste harem" but suppresses this knowledge.

The narrator's obsession with the woman intensifies. She copies the woman's mannerisms from YouTube interviews and tracks the woman's breakup through forensic Instagram analysis. She critiques the woman's relationship to her father's 50-acre farming commune in Mendocino, California, arguing the woman lacks awareness of being a white woman on colonized land, dictating values already practiced by Indigenous people before their disinheritance. The narrator schemes to infiltrate the woman's family by borrowing a dog to engineer encounters with Djuna, the woman's half-sister, in a London park.

At one of the man's events, the narrator sees his wife for the first time. The man spots her and ignores her all evening. Later, in a Holborn pub, he hands the narrator his phone and tells her to block the woman on Instagram. She presses the button, feeling it is like killing her. The narrator then begins defending the woman, insisting the man slept with her recklessly and of course she expected a future.

The narrator visits a gallery showing the wife's collages. When the attendant steps away, she carves her initials into one of the works with a Sharpie, writes "fuck you," and walks out. During an Instagram Live hosted by the woman she obsesses over, the narrator posts a provocative comment that stuns both speakers into silence, feeling a transgressive high at having penetrated the woman's world.

Throughout, the narrator examines how fandom, class, race, and consumerism shape her experience. She compares her obsession to the conspiratorial fervor of Trump's base. She questions whether second-generation immigrants who perform their Otherness for approval are complicit in their own exploitation. She sees her relationship with the man in capitalist terms: She has invested too much to walk away. In public, the man frames his work as challenging patriarchal power; the narrator rages, knowing how he treats women privately.

After a two-month silence, the man texts suggesting they resume sleeping together. She recognizes the pattern but cannot break free. In the novel's final passage, she fantasizes about secretly getting pregnant, trapping a piece of him inside her. The fantasy trails off mid-sentence, leaving the novel suspended in unresolved obsession and cyclical entrapment.