Siren Queen by Nghi Vo is fantasy set in 1930s Hollywood. The nameless first person narrator, whose Chinese immigrant father owns a laundry, first sees silent films by selling an inch of her hair; later, she plays the roles of assorted children in talkie movies that are filming nearby. To join a studio as an actor, ruled by an inhumanly powerful otherworldly being, she has to make sacrifices, blackmailing a contact and bargaining away some of her life in the hope of becoming a star, which in thi...