All three of these novels have to do with money, which seems to be a central theme of our current century.
The Mighty Red Louise Erdrich (2024) The surface story of The Mighty Red centers on Kismet Poe, a Native American teenager living near the Red River in North Dakota (where the novelist herself grew up). Two very different young men, Gary Geist and Hugo Dumach, are in romantic pursuit of Kismet; her mother, Crystal Frechette, tries to advise her. A side mystery arises when Kismet’s father, Martin, disappears, along with all trace of more than a million dollars in funds that have been raised for a church renovation. Meanwhile, dark secrets about Gary and the Red River swirl around, not revealed until late in the tale. The river actually underpins the entire narrative here. For generations, its springtime floods have deposited rich soil for farmers’ crops, but chemical overuse has poisoned much of the land. The profits of agribusiness are a powerful draw in the economic recession of 2008, when the main action of this sly and sparkling novel takes place. I want to confess that this is the first of Erdrich’s novels that I’ve read, although I have read her poems. The author herself gave me an autographed copy of her poetry collection Baptism of Desire when I had dinner with her in 1994. Louise Erdrich is the only literary rock star that I’ve ever met, and I can report that she is gracious as well as brilliant.
Entitlement Rumann Alam (2024) Money, money, money! Billionaire Asher Jeffries (age 83) has plenty, and he wants to give it away through his New York foundation. One of his foundation employees, Brooke Orr (age 33), becomes his protégé and confidante. At first, Brooke is committed to the task of finding worthy recipients for Jeffries’ money, but gradually she comes to feel entitled to more and more of that money for herself. The tension builds as readers watch Brooke’s greed grow. The author’s shifting narrative voices are sometimes too abrupt for my reading style, but his character development and his depiction of Manhattan in 2014 ring true. Most of all, he fearlessly lays bare the corrupting power of money, while not shying away from issues of race and gender.
The Wedding People Alison Espach (2024) For years, Phoebe has endured painful fertility treatments that have been unsuccessful. Her husband has deserted her for another woman and then divorced her. Her work as an adjunct academic is unfulfilling and unrewarded. So she travels to an expensive hotel in Newport, Rhode Island, determined to take pills and end it all. But she stumbles into a week-long wedding celebration that was supposed to have exclusive reservations for the entire hotel, and the bride is not happy to have an interloper. Phoebe gets drawn into the wedding drama—one character calls it “the goddamned most elaborate wedding possible.” If, like me, you are baffled by the current American obsession with over-the-top weddings, you’ll find the satire here quite satisfying. The writing, heavy on dialog to carry the plot, is sharp and witty. But, in the end, the novel is less about weddings and more about surviving depression and finding your true self.