Author Kyla Zhao got her start in publishing at the age of sixteen writing for the Singapore editions of prominent glossy magazines penning wedding articles for Harper’s Bazaar, then went on to Tatler and Vogue. She centers her debut novel, The Fraud Squad, in the world of Singapore glossies with a Pygmalion twist. The story is fun and while it could be tempting to compare it to Crazy Rich Asians or The Devil Wears Prada, Zhao’s novel distinctively stands on its own with its exploration of the role society magazines play in cities like Singapore and Hong Kong.
While an explicit riff on the Pygmalion story, The Fraud Squad is not so much about a man trying to change a woman to make her more palatable in society as a young woman named Samantha (“Sam”) Song who has always dreamed of working for S, a fictional magazine that stands above the other glossies. Sam works for a PR company that is owned by the parent company that also owns S, and had believed her current work could serve as an entrée into writing for the magazine. But as she quickly learns, it’s practically impossible to write for S if one is not already in the club.
Sam lives in public housing with her widowed mother, a manicurist at a nail salon. Even before her father died from a heart attack a decade earlier, Sam had found a distraction in the glossies. They were especially comforting when her parents used to fight over money, or a lack of it.
One day, desperate to escape her feuding parents and the loan sharks who always came knocking, she fled to the neighborhood bookstore and—with nothing better to do—picked up a random copy of S. Immediately, Samantha found herself drawn into the pages of jet-setters and highfliers, of elaborate parties and designer brands. From that day on, her troubles at home became a little easier to bear; she could escape into S and lose herself in a picture-perfect world where the word “debt” didn’t exist.
When Sam meets hedge fund heir Timothy Kingston through her work friend, Anya, she comes up with a plan to catapult herself into the editorial offices of S. If Tim and Anya could bring her to events that would be covered by S, Sam could turn herself into socialite who is invited to all the top parties in the city. The goal of this experiment would be an invitation to the magazine’s fabled S Gala, three weeks after they start this charade. If Sam could rise up that far in society, she could get to know the editor-in-chief of the magazine and pitch her idea for a writing gig.
Tim is more than game for this scheme because it would allow him to prove to his parents that status means nothing. If a woman from public housing could become a socialite, then a socialite like him could work in a field that wasn’t predetermined by his birth. “It’s the Fraud Squad against the Snob Mob,” Tim said after he and Anya happily agreed to Sam’s plan.
Tim’s on-again-off-again girlfriend, Lucia, poses a challenge to their scheme, but all seems to go well until the lies start catching up with the three friends and trust becomes a big question amongst all of them. Sam starts to neglect her best friend, a feminist lawyer named Raina, and her own mother. She also starts to doubt why she ever thought she could pretend to be someone she’s not.
She might be at the top of Singapore high society now, shopping at designer boutiques, attending fancy parties, and being fawned over by others. But would most people even give her the time of day if they knew her from her days of splitting the $4.99 toast set at Madam Pang’s kopitiam with Raina?
References to Pygmalion, My Fair Lady and Pretty Woman aside, the story comes to a tipping point at the end and the conclusion is perhaps not what’s normally expected in romantic comedies: this story is not typical as it’s orchestrated by a woman for her own professional development.
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