The Simp by Roshan Sethi: A novel without a hero

I dithered about reading Roshan Sethi’s The Simp, put off by a few dismissive reviews, but given it’s published by a favourite imprint, decided to take the plunge. As Thackeray fans will have spotted from the subtitle, it’s a twenty-first century take on Vanity Fair, set in Hollywood in 2020, the year Black Lives Matter hit the headlines.

In Los Angeles, you could be anything. There was such a pervasive atmosphere of falsity, like the smog that spread itself across the sky in a thin film. Nobody expected the truth. Everybody moved through the same haze. 

Raj is a frequent reader of Thackeray’s classic, turning to it in times of difficulty of which there are many. He longs be at the heart of Hollywood but rather than identifying with the social climbing Becky Sharp, he sees himself as Amelia Sedley. Born and brought up in New Delhi by loving, wealthy parents, Raj’s schoolboy appearance as Puck lit an ambition which he’s failed to achieve despite over a decade of trying and a prodigious talent spotted by his drama teacher who becomes a loving, faithful mentor. Raj does the usual wannabe Hollywood actor jobs until he sees an advertisement for an assistant to an A-list couple, jumping through the requisite hoops and finagling his way into the position. Raj’s acting talent enables him to be whatever Anna and Jim want him to be, burying his rage at their ridiculous demands in the same way he did when he came out to his parents. Occasionally, his anger leaks out, anonymously targeting his employers in a social media pile-on which turns out to be a dress rehearsal for his final act as their assistant. On yet another rereading of his beloved Vanity Fair, he realises that he’s neither Becky nor Amelia but a different character altogether.

White people are the worst, white people were saying, eager to show they had learned their lesson at last. The same white people, however, wrote minority leads without inner lives or flaws because those flaws might be racist.  

Raj’s story unfolds against a background of the fallout from George Floyd’s appalling murder and the resultant surge of support for the Black Lives Matter movement. He’s an engaging, deeply flawed character, apparently unable to tell the truth. Sethi mercilessly lampoons Hollywood, portraying Anna and Jim as spoilt children whose fragile egos need constant bolstering, in counterpoint to their own child who clings like a limpet to Raj and his nanny, ignored by his parents. White guilt is neatly skewered, Hollywood loudly performing outrage and horror at its own culpability setting up all manner of initiatives which fade over the following years until business as usual establishes itself. It’s very funny but like all good satirists, Sethi makes serious points, particularly about racism against Indians. I enjoyed this absorbing, sharp, witty takedown which comes at a different angle to Vanity Fair from Sarah May’s Becky, an enjoyable homage which excoriated the tabloid media. As a film director, presumably the multi-talented Sethi knows what he’s talking about.

Sceptre Books: London 99781399755689 304 pages Hardback