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Juniper's Song: The Swan Song of a Literary Charlatan

The swan song, defined by Merriam-Webster as a farewell appearance or final act or public statement, is what Juniper Song tries to emulate through her new tell-all memoir Juniper’s Song. While some see that title as a final self-sacrificing move to the angry, mean mob, others see it as yet another attempt for the writer to victimize herself and pretend that she is the party wronged in the situation. For those who clicked on this article without being chronically online (lucky you), earlier this year, Candice Lee, a former intern at Eden, took the publishing world by storm with her exposé, Yellowface. Lee’s book tells Juniper Song’s (also known as June Hayward) story of cultural appropriation and plagiarism in the writing of her bestseller The Last Front and subsequent novella Mother Witch. Eagle-eyes book lovers have noticed too big similarities between Song’s work and those of her deceased friend and writer Athena Liu, launching a never-ending conflict between those who believe Song’s words to be her own and those scouring the internet in search of proof against that (proof that, dare I say, keep accumulating). All came to a stop as Lee announced the metaphorical nail in the coffin that her new book had brought six months ago, finally convincing more and more people to that side of the story. A part of the story in which Song stole from her dead friend, her words yes, but also her ideas, her Times bestseller list number one spot, and ethnicity. Lee’s book brought a new layer of proof to readers' assertions that came up throughout Song’s newly found fame and career. The seething accusations were welcomed with overall anger and disbelief for Song’s audacity yet kept a sizeable amount of people going from outraged at Lee’s accusations to unconvinced of her lack of real and tangible proof outside of emails shared with Song during the development of The Last Front (emails revealing comments with a good amount of racist undertones and confirming twitter users suspicions in some aspects of the debate). Sensing that opportunity to try and sway the ones left to convince, Song returned with her new memoir Juniper’s Song.

Circling us back to the concept of the swan song, Song promises “the truth about [her] friendship with Athena” and what led to the development of her two controversial books as a last and desperate attempt to get people to see her side and hopefully not getting blacklisted from all publishing house and reader’s bookshelves alike. I’ll be honest by saying that I did not (could not really) approach Song’s book with an open and unbiased mind. Yes, sue me, I am part of the internet that believes Juniper Song Hayward should not be brought within 3 feet of any kind of writing tool and much less be given a platform to continue spewing her “woe is me” act. It seems to me that Song’s luck in dodging the effects of “cancel culture” that she tries to antagonize so much in her memoir (which has some extent of truth, I’ll admit, but that is a debate for another time) is finally coming to an end. She says that the book's role is to tell the truth and finally show who is right and wrong in this story. However, that victim attitude that became her brand at this point comes without any trace of remorse of accepting any wrongs she might have done, which gets tiring after years of seeing it. Song presents in her memoir the classic white tears of “we can’t say anything these days, everyone cries to racism every time we don’t cater to others’ soft attitude” that your “all lives matter”, “pronouns are dangerous” uncle usually spew at the holiday dinner table while you try to not roll your eyes too hard in the risk of spraining something. The use of the quite obnoxious, in my opinion, title Juniper’s Song feels like a seventh grader idea of a cool and original name for their cool and original dystopian novel. No offense to any young writers, we all started somewhere, keep going I’m sure you will do great things, just don’t take any advice from the crazy white lady who thinks people of color need bad representation written by someone who never left the comfort of their white suburban neighborhood of all people.

Ultimately, I think it is impossible to mistake my feelings for Song’s memoir as anything other than disgust at the writer herself. The memoir reads like a sob story from the Lifetime channel in which Song tries to make herself look good against Lee and the internet, aka the big bad wolf who doesn’t like to see women succeed, and fails spectacularly at the task. The prose is hard to read as it drips with condescension at everyone, except Song herself, and shows no hint of self-awareness or willingness to accept her flaws and wrongs. In Juniper Song Hayward’s world, we are all worms under her heels that do not deserve an ounce of her time or attention. Song marketed and titled her memoir as a literary swan song, her final contribution to the publishing industry and the occasion to tell the “truth” before mean internet users push her out, all the while not believing it and expecting the world to drop any proof and accusations against her so she can take back her rightful place in the publishing world. Sadly, I believe that regardless of how many people will refuse to read and buy another one of her books, the less online part of the reading community will continue to support her, unaware of any problematic behavior she exhibited in the past (and present). I, on the other hand, will be watching if she manages to write another book half as good (writing-wise at least — we could do without the romanticization of marginal communities like what she did with The Last Front) as what she produced under Athena Liu’s prose all on her own, without a ghost’s help, and will smile as she inevitably falls down the metaphorical stairs.