{"id":3026,"date":"2022-03-07T22:30:17","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T22:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=3026"},"modified":"2022-03-11T16:41:45","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T16:41:45","slug":"girl-oil-by-grace-p-fong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=3026","title":{"rendered":"Girl Oil by Grace P. Fong"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Girl Oil<\/em><\/strong> by Grace P. Fong (Tor.com,1<\/sup> 22nd<\/sup> February 2022) opens with the Asian narrator, Chelle, at the beach with her college student friend Preston and another woman called Wenquian. Chelle is romantically interested in Preston but he is interested in Wenqian.
Chelle later goes to an advertisement casting in the Valley and gets some uncomplimentary feedback from the Mandarin speaking (there is a cultural identity subtext to the story) producer (\u201clet\u2019s face it, you are a little fat\u201d). On her way out she gets an experimental body oil from one of his assistants that may help with her problem.
When Chelle gets back to her room she finds that Preston is, much to her displeasure, with Wenqian. After the two of them leave to have dinner Chelle has a shower:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I dab beads of oil on my face and pat them with the balls of my fingers like I\u2019ve seen Wenqian do. It goes on light and colorless but smells like sulfur and charcoal. It burns and turns my nerves to steam. The tingling continues long after I\u2019ve dressed.
I check the mirror again and I\u2019m shocked. My face is my face, but firmer, brighter, thinner. This might actually work. I massage more into my soft arms, jutting stomach, and radish calves. Sparks dance under my skin until I double over on the bathroom floor. I stumble through the ache and pull myself up to the mirror. The me that rises is brighter, lighter, slimmer. Maybe she can finally fit in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The next day Chelle buys a new dress\u2014she fits into a medium size for the first time\u2014and then texts Preston while she is at the beach, asking for an audition with his movie-maker father. That night she applies more oil, even though the instructions say to stop if there is a burning sensation (which she has been experiencing).
The rest of the story (spoiler) sees more three-way romantic complications and Chelle\u2019s overuse of the oil to the point that she almost drowns at the beach (for some reason the oil now makes her unable to swim). Then matters deteriorate even further when creates a hole in her body (\u201cthe flesh thins and parts, turning into yellow smoke\u201d). When Chelle finally goes to a call back audition with Preston\u2019s father, she discovers that no-one can see her: she has become invisible. Finally, Chelle returns to the beach and dissolves in the sea, becoming part of the ocean. The last line has her reconcile with her body\/size, \u201cI am so big, and it is so wonderful.\u201d
The slimming oil metaphor\/arc of this story may work for young women readers who have body image and boyfriend hook-up issues, but I\u2019m not sure how much of the rest of the short SF reading field (whatever that is nowadays) will be interested.2<\/sup> That said, even if the content isn\u2019t of any interest, it is well enough written.
** (Average). 5,000 words. Story link<\/a>.

1. This is the second place winner of the \u201cLeVar Burton Reads writing contest, as co-presented by FIYAH Literary Magazine and Tor.com!\u201d

2. The SF short fiction field has been metamorphosing into a literary small press for decades now; we have probably arrived at the end of that cul-de-sac.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Girl Oil by Grace P. Fong (Tor.com,1 22nd February 2022) opens with the Asian narrator, Chelle, at the beach with her college student friend Preston and another woman called Wenquian. Chelle is romantically interested in Preston but he is interested in Wenqian.Chelle later goes to an advertisement casting in the Valley and gets some uncomplimentary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[747],"tags":[17,539,750,751,748,752,12,116],"class_list":["post-3026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grace-p-fong","tag-17","tag-539","tag-body-image","tag-boyfriend-problems","tag-grace-p-fong","tag-magic-oil","tag-short-story","tag-tor-com"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3026"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3128,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3026\/revisions\/3128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}