The Privileges

There has been on shortage of books about rich people; F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said they are different than you or I (Hemingway's response was, "Yes, they have more money.") Jonathan Dee's novel, , is a bit different from those I've read, in that he seems to make no judgments about his wealthy family of protagonists--they're just folks who happen to have a lot of money.

The novel is structured in four chapters. The first is a virtuoso description of a wedding. Adam and Cynthia, 22 and young to be getting married in this day and age, are tying the knot. The wedding is a big one, held in Pittsburgh, where Cynthia's mother lives, but we immediately like our couple, who see through the bullshit and get along great. The wedding is scene from many points of view, from the intended to their attendants to the parents to the wedding planner.

Each of the next three chapters jumps ahead in their lives, to when they have small children and Adam is an up-and-comer in an investment firm, to when the kids are teenagers and Adam is insider trading, to when the kids are college age and Adam is filthy rich and Cynthia is running a major philanthropical organization. The characters are finely etched and the writing sings, as in this example of when Cynthia meets her husband's boss's wife, who gives her a tour of her country home: "By the fourth or fifth room Cynthia had a powerful urge to burn the whole place to the ground with this Botoxed stick figure inside it. There was no way they could have been more than ten years apart in age--unless she was a mummy, Cynthia reflected while watching the jaw move in her eerily smooth face, or possibly a vampire, preserved for centuries by the blood of her social inferiors--and yet she spoke as if from some great experiential height, as if, at the end of her remarks, there might be time for questions."

As good as the book starts, I couldn't help but be disappointed as it goes on, and the last chapter seems like a random unraveling. The daughter, April, is a society queen hip-deep in drugs and Eurotrash. Jonas, the boy, is attending college and studying art history, and attempts to track down an outsider artist who may be insane. I couldn't quite grasp what Dee was trying to say--it was as if the plot were decided by roll of dice. April embraces her wealth--she nonchalantly buys Jonas and his girlfriend a Picasso--while Jonas distances himself from it, living in modest circumstances. It just didn't mean much to me, and doesn't so much end as stop.

I did like some asides, particularly from Jonas' point of view. As a teenager he's into music, and alienates his cover band-mates with his deep interest in bluegrass and folk. He thinks to himself, "What the hell ever happened to country music, anyway? It used to be so fucking dark it took your breath away. Just a few more weary days and then I'll fly away. Now it was a museum of itself, a pander-factory full of Vegas-style reactionaries in thousand-dollar hats. What was good about it was never coming back."

I think The Privileges would have been brilliant if the chapters were told in reverse order--as Harold Pinter's play Betrayal was. If we were to start with the rich people, and then progressively shown how they were younger and less rich would have made more of an impact. As it is, it left me unsatisfied.