Summary
Athena Liu, a successful young novelist, invites Juniper “June” Hayward out for drinks in order to celebrate a TV deal she just closed with Netflix. As June explains within her narration, the TV deal is just one of Athena’s many accolades—unlike June, who has struggled to get even one work published, Athena has already published three novels, all of which have been bestsellers and have garnered her many awards. Alongside her publishing success, Athena also holds an MFA from one of the best creative writing programs in the country and has attended several artist residencies.
Despite her success, June notes that Athena lacks friends; though she has an active social media presence and an incredibly illustrious career, Athena appears to have few friends outside of the professional connections she’s gained over the past few years. Even June and Athena aren’t very close, as June explains—the two women met during their undergraduate studies at Yale because they lived on the same floor and kept up a friendship due to their shared interest in writing. Because of Athena’s limited social circle, it’s just Athena and June who go out to celebrate, with Athena bringing June to a local bar in Washington D.C., where both women coincidentally moved after graduating college.
Where Athena has experienced success, June has met disappointment in regard to her writing. After June finished a novel and successfully sold the rights to a “Big Five” publishing house, the editor who purchased her manuscript was fired during a round of lay-offs and June’s novel was shuttered to the side. Although it was eventually released, the novel sold very few copies, and the editor assigned to June after her original one was fired showed little interest in June’s work.
As the night goes on, Athena gets significantly more drunk than June. June recalls that this behavior is typically for Athena, who could never hold her alcohol in college. After a while, both women grow tired of the rooftop bar where they had originally met and Athena invites June back to her apartment. June is impressed by the apartment, but at the same time she is not surprised, considering how rich Athena is thanks to the payouts she receives from royalties. As Athena fixes drinks, June wanders into Athena’s office. She spots Athena’s latest manuscript: a large stack of papers that Athena then explains is a novel about World War I. Athena, known for her secrecy about ongoing projects, surprises June by asking June to read the manuscript. June tucks the stack of papers into her tote bag and agrees to give it a look once she’s more sober.
The two women return to the kitchen and decide to make pancakes. After they’re finished cooking, they begin to eat, and Athena suggests an eating contest. As they devour the pancakes, Athena begins to choke on a piece. June attempts to perform the Heimlich maneuver but fails and watches as Athena chokes to death in front of her. She calls 911 and, in a blur, is questioned by the EMTs and the police before an officer drives her home. As she arrives home, June realizes that she still has Athena’s manuscript in her bag.
Over the next few weeks, June grapples with Athena’s death and its significance for her. As much as she hates to admit it, she cannot claim to feel intense grief; she and Athena were not close enough for June to truly feel as though Athena were a good friend. Despite this, Athena’s mother invites June to Athena’s funeral, where June feels incredibly out of place, largely due to the Chinese speeches and traditions that make up a big portion of the funeral. June feels haunted by the thought that she could have saved Athena. Later, she posts a long Twitter thread about Athena’s death, although she realizes that much of what she writes is nothing more than a choreographed performance of grief that mirrors other public expressions of grief she’s previously read online. June decides to read the manuscript that she took from Athena’s apartment. The Last Front, as the novel is titled, is about the Chinese Labour Corps, Chinese workers who were recruited by the British Army and fought for the Allies in World War I. June is astounded at the work’s mastery of content and form; unlike Athena’s previous novels, The Last Front brings together several different narratives and perspectives, and manages to unite both a love story and a war story. However, June also notices that the draft is nowhere near done. June decides to try and finish the novel, following the “breadcrumbs” that Athena’s already laid out.
After three weeks, June finishes the first draft. She emails her literary agent, Brett Adams, and sends him the manuscript, asking for his feedback. For a moment, she considers telling him that the manuscript was originally Athena’s, but after considering how difficult it would be to explain how she obtained the manuscript and gain permission for publishing it, she decides against it and passes off the work as fully her own.
After a few days, Brett gets back to June and tells her that he loves the book and would like to bring it to publishers. A few weeks later, editors from all of the Big Five publishing houses begin to clamor over the rights, and the book goes to auction, eventually selling to Eden Press, a midsize indie publisher known for its prestige fiction.
After publicizing the book’s purchase, June receives a series of texts, messages, and phone calls from writing friends congratulating her. She quits her job, as she’ll have steady income for the next few years from the sale. While she celebrates her success, she also addresses the reader directly within her narration in an attempt to rebut potential accusations of plagiarism, emphasizing the amount of work she had to do in order to complete the manuscript. June continues to defend herself by stating that she thanks Athena in the acknowledgments and debates the possibility that Athena would have wanted June to publish the book.
There are fifteen months between the book’s purchase and its publication, during which June is given a series of edits by her new editor, Daniella Woodhouse. June respects Daniella, and feels intimidated by her poise and intensity. June feels relieved when reading Daniella’s edits because she can relate many of Daniella’s questions or criticism to Athena’s original manuscript, taking the burden off of herself and shifting it onto Athena’s “bullshit,” such as when Athena used Chinese characters within the text without providing a translation.
June confesses that she sees many of Athena’s stylistic conventions, such as including Chinese characters, as nothing more than ways that Athena can make herself and her readers feel smarter than they really are. Upon revision, June and her editor change the names Athena originally had in the manuscript, cut out a large portion of backstory, and “soften” the racist language Athena included that characterized how British soldiers related to the Chinese soldiers in the text. They also “soften” some of the white characters in order to render the French and British soldiers less racist than Athena had originally written them to be. Daniella and June also deem some scenes too “over the top” in their violent portrayal of Chinese mistreatment at the hands of the British, even though Athena’s handwritten comments on her manuscript reveal to June that many of these scenes were ones she copied directly from historical records.
Editing the manuscript gives June newfound confidence in her writing. Despite her unfamiliarity with the topic, she justifies the fact that the manuscript is “hers” by citing the many books on Asian racial politics and histories of Chinese labor she read in order to complete it. June feels determined to hide the fact that the manuscript was originally Athena’s and begins an elaborate plan in order to make sure the connection remains secret. In public, June plays up her and Athena’s friendship, believing that the best way to hide her lie is “in plain sight.” By playing up their friendship, June hopes that the similarities in their style—similarities that are, in reality, a product of the fact that June stole Athena’s manuscript—will be explained by the collaborative writing relationship she begins to tell everyone she shared with Athena.
Although June first believes that her plan is going smoothly, she soon encounters a problem: Athena’s mother has given Athena’s drafting notes and notebooks to the Yale library. If the notebooks end up in the public archive, everyone will find out that The Last Front had originally been Athena’s manuscript. June decides to visit Athena’s mother and attempt to convince her to pull the notebooks from the public archives. Athena’s mother agrees and offers the notebooks to June instead; June refuses, and Atehna’s mother decides to keep the notebooks to herself.
Analysis
The novel immediately introduces June and Athena as character foils—characters that accentuate opposing facets of each other’s personalities, experiences, or circumstances. Although June and Athena met each other as hallmates at Yale, seemingly united by their shared interest in writing, their paths quickly diverged after Athena found quick success in the publishing world and broke into the public eye. Where Athena was able to publish three novels and found herself occupying the status of celebrity author—going so far as to win awards and gain notoriety as an up-and-coming voice for AAPI authors (Asian, Asian American, and/or Pacific Islander)—June’s work failed to garner the same visibility.
June’s first-person narration characterizes Athena’s success not only through her achievements, but also through June’s own subjective assessment of Athena’s character and actions. The novel remains tightly constrained around June’s perspective; as readers, we never see Athena through the eyes of anyone else. As such, it is important to interpret June’s description of Athena as reflective not only of Athena, but of June herself. For example, when June describes Athena’s success, she fixates on highlighting details about Athena’s identity. She mentions the photo spread that featured Athena as a “prodigy” who was telling “the AAPI stories we need,” as well as Athena’s name, which she characterizes as both “classical and exotic.” For June, Athena serves as an example of a writer who succeeded because of their identity—a writer who, as June states, was “‘diverse’ enough,” a feature of success that June mentions “we’re all thinking” about, implicating the reader within her own prejudiced envy.
June’s cynical attitude towards the role that identity plays in writing becomes all the more pronounced once she begins to work on editing Athena’s manuscript with her new editor, Daniella. With Daniella’s encouragement, June makes several changes to the manuscript that simplify Athena’s original depiction of the relationship between Chinese and European soldiers. June “softens” this relationship, thus ensuring that Athena’s manuscript remains palatable for white readers who may otherwise take offense at its portrayal of the colonial violence that characterized British behavior towards Chinese soldiers in the early twentieth century.
Throughout these first few chapters, June’s first-person narration also reveals the high degree of self-consciousness that she feels about her actions. June constantly attempts to justify her editorial decisions or explain the lack of guilt she feels in committing plagiarism and theft. While June evidently understands that her actions—stealing Athena’s manuscript and profiting off of the death of her friend—are immoral, she also repeats several reasons throughout the text that serve as arguments for why she should be allowed to act in the way she does. She hypothesizes that Athena would have wanted her manuscript to be published; after editing the manuscript, June repeats many times how much she’s improved Athena’s writing as a way of affirming how she’s done the right thing by stealing and publishing it under her own name. The reader becomes the audience for June's performance of excuses, justifications, and rationalizations that she uses to try to resolve the ethical tensions she feels about how she’s capitalized upon Athena’s work.
While June and Athena are in many ways opposites, it is also crucial to note how many of the details that June attributes to Athena are also reflected within June’s own life. June spends significant time explaining how few friends Athena has, but June, herself, similarly lacks friends and social connections. June is alienated from her family, who struggle to understand her writing career and fail to connect to her first novel—a fictional representation of June and her sister’s relationship.
