Feedback Request

 The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1500 would like feedback on the following version of the query letter.

Dear [Agent],

At twenty-four, Dal is slowly disappearing. Raised by devout Korean-American Christian parents, she was once full of ambition—but now she drifts through a dull office job, avoids her loud and eccentric neighbors, and spends her free time people-watching on the subway. Then she meets Callia, a charming artist who makes Dal feel seen for the first time in years. Their friendship becomes all-consuming, and soon Dal is obsessively molding her life—and herself—entirely around Callia.

When Dal helps direct a video project featuring Callia’s newest artwork, the final piece is stunning. But weeks later, she learns Callia has already exhibited it, claimed full credit, and erased any trace of her involvement. When Dal confronts her, Callia dismisses her feelings and ends their friendship with a devastating admission: she’s bored of Dal—and tired of pretending otherwise.

Mentally unstable and on the verge of moving back with her parents, Dal discovers a memoir written by her late grandfather. His words pull her into the turbulence of 20th-century Korea: Japanese occupation, civil war, exile. For the first time, Dal sees how inherited pain has shaped her—the silence, the need to serve, the fear of taking up space. Her grandfather’s words compel Dal to confront how she has been performing for Callia, how she has been living for others—and to ask what it might mean to finally live for herself.

My Soul a Stage is a 60,000-word upmarket novel that blends fiction and memoir to explore queer longing, emotional isolation, and generational trauma. It will resonate with fans of Min-Jin Lee’s multigenerational Pachinko, Michelle Zauner’s intimate Crying in H Mart, and James McBride’s community-driven Deacon King Kong.

The novel’s memoir sections are taken directly from my grandfather’s real, unpublished writings, which inspired me to tell this story.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Notes

I can't imagine agents get many queries this well-written. I might change "mentally unstable" to "emotionally unsettled," to avoid conveying the impression that she's planning to shoot up an art gallery, but for all I know, she is. 

Some (but certainly not all) agents may balk at your slightly low word count. Maybe if grandfather wasn't very prolific, you could expand on his memoir with what you suspect he would have written if he hadn't been so busy trying to stay alive.