Rumaan Alam’s captivating, artfully nuanced fourth novel, revolves around the growing distance between the one percent and the rest of us. He features Brooke Orr, a Black woman who has left her teaching job at a Bronx charter school in 2014 to work for a nonprofit, helping Asher Jaffee, a self-made multibillionaire, give away his money. Her assumption is, she will be doing good.
As she bounces between gritty subway stations and Bed-Stuy bars with friends, and concerts at Lincoln Center and dinners at Jean-Georges with Asher, Brooke is gradually seduced by the beyond-aspirational privilege of the super wealthy. Asher becomes her mentor, and she begins to fantasize about what he could give her, how little it would take to change her life upward. “Demand something from the world,” Asher instructs her.
“Demand the best. Demand it.” Living on the fringe of Asher’s life gradually destabilizes Brooke (one longtime friend sees a newfound conviction in her eyes—or is it madness?).
Then Alam ratchets up the stakes, building to a gripping, frenetic, revelatory finale. Our Brooklyn/Sonoma County email conversation took place during the last days of summer. * How have these recent years of pandemic and conflict affected your life, your family, your work, including the , which premiered in December 2023 (and in which your family played a cameo), and the writing of and launch of your new novel, ? Well, the period of the pandemic was so difficult for so many my complaints about.