Review: 'Immaculate Conception' by Ling Ling Huang
Pub. Date: 13/05/2025
Publisher: Penguin Group Dutton
What if you could enter the mind of the person you love the most?
Enka meets Mathilde in art school and is instantly drawn to her. Mathilde makes art that feels truly original, and Enka—trying hard to prove herself in this fiercely competitive world—pours everything into their friendship. But when Mathilde’s fame and success cause her to begin drifting away, Enka becomes desperate to keep her close.
Enter SCAFFOLD. Purported to enhance empathy, this cutting-edge technology could allow Enka to inhabit Mathilde’s mind and access her memories, artistic inspirations, and deep-seated trauma. Undergoing this procedure would link Enka and Mathilde forever. But at what cost?
Blisteringly smart, thought-provoking, and shocking, Immaculate Conception offers us a portrait of close friendship—achingly tender and twisted—that captures the tenuous line between love and possession that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.
As some of you know, I work in the Humanities at a university and focus specifically on literature. As such, the creation of art, which I consider literature to be, is something close to my heart. It is also something I feel is being undermined a little by the rise of AI. It is not actually AI or technology that I think is the problem, it is the ease with which some people dismiss the craft and skill and emotion that goes into the actual creation of art, the ease with which they think an algorithm can produce something that would equal that. The best art pieces, be they sculpture, painting, writing, music etc., give an insight into the human behind them, into their time and their thoughts, and provide the audience with a new way of approaching themselves and their own feelings and ideas. An algorithm has nothing to share. Admittedly, as Immaculate Conception shows, some humans themselves have rather complex things to share which we might not want to see. Huang's book is full of odd, conceptual and performative art which continually straddles a line between intriguing and boring, exploitative and insightful. But I love the messiness of the art within the story and the willingness to get messy in the construction of the book itself. Huang plays with so many themes and ideas, which she somehow manages to meld together nicely into a gripping narrative.
Enka is a fringe kid, removed from the world of the rich not just physically, but even digitally. But she gets a scholarship to attend a prestigious art school and she hopes it's a way into a new life. There, she meets Mathilde, an art prodigy who is also deeply withdrawn and shaken by things in her past. A fierce friendship develops which is most definitely co-dependent. As Mathilde's career takes off, Enka finds her own stagnating until she becomes involved with the Dahl family, gaining access to a whole new level of wealth and privilege. But is true art born out of ease? And is trauma actually necessary or a hinderance to the creating of art? Enka and Mathilde's lives intertwine for years, even before the SCAFFOLD comes into play, allowing Enka direct access to Mathilde herself. Will this be the making or breaking of their friendship? And what kind of art can come out of the fusing of two minds? Immaculate Conception somehow walks the fine line between being insightful and bonkers. Parts of the plot are insane (complimentary), while I also found myself highlighting sentences that struck close to home in a deeply intimate way. There were a few moments where I legitimately put my Kindle down to explain to my cat what had just happened because I simply had to share. Bear in mind, there are discussions of sexual abuse, descriptions of medical procedures, and elements of body horror here and there.
Ling Ling Huang managed to grip me from the very first page and despite all the different themes it pulls in, it never feels confused or undirected. Huang discusses class, exploitation, ever-encroaching technology, the destruction wreaked by AI, female enmity and female love, identity, motherhood, and more and somehow it felt cohesive. The novel also covers years, decades even, and yet the characterisation always felt consistent. Enka is delightfully difficult, meaning that I found myself swinging like a pendulum between liking her and wondering what was actually wrong with her. She is not easy to root for, seeming to consistently take the worst option available to her, and yet Huang crafts a background for her from which many of those choices do, somehow, become a little understandable. Huang also doesn't shy away from showing us every character at their worst, sparing no contempt for the worst of them. I also adored the above-mentioned bonkers hijinks of parts of the plot, where Huang wove in speculative/sci-fi aspects, especially in relation to technology and medical advancements. Whether you will find parts of Immaculate Conception impactful as well probably depends on your willingness to let art people be art people and to trust Huang to know where she's going. I got the feeling she was utterly in control of what she was presenting, while leaving enough open to the reader to interpret and mull over themselves. Ling Ling Huang has absolutely won me over, I'm going to read whatever she writes next, pronto.
I give this novel...
5 Universes!
Immaculate Conception is one of my favourite reads so far, gripping me from page one and taking me on one hell of a ride. From decadent art shows and medical advancements to female friendship turned obsession, this book has pretty much everything you could wish for.
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