Review | In Blob: A Love Story, an Asian-American woman literally moulds her perfect man
Author Maggie Su’s surreal new novel offers a unique look at humanity as a woman creates her own very handsome Frankenstein’s monster
With the rise of artificial intelligence and the uncertain geopolitical environment, it seems appropriate to start 2025 with some surreal fiction.
In Blob: A Love Story, a young Taiwanese-American woman named Vi stumbles upon a “beige gelatin splotch” with mouth, eyes and lips next to a rubbish bin outside a dive bar, takes it home, feeds it and helps it morph into a real man.
That is the plot summary in brief, but the book is a whole lot weirder than that.
First-time novelist Maggie Su has fun letting Vi essentially mould her ideal man – “He doesn’t look like any one movie star but rather a conglomeration of movie stars” – but the story is not played entirely for laughs.
Creating and interacting with Bob the blob – yes, that is the name she gives him – gives Vi plenty of time to think about her own life. She is uneasy about the way she treats so-called friends and has not yet come to terms with a recent break-up.