A haunting story of wealth, youth, and the legacy we leave behind. Brooke is not living up to her potential, a black woman raised by a single white mother who adopted her. She is a graduate of Vassar and left her job teaching at a charter school after being disillusioned that the school cared only about STEM, her literature studies went unappreciated. Brooke is now “program manager” for Asher Jaffe, an 80-something divorced billionaire who lost his only daughter, born the day Kennedy was assassinated, on September 11th in the twin towers attacks.
Asher and Brooke have a friendship that evolves over the course of the book, Brooke’s proximity to Asher makes her more and more numb to seeing wealth. Asher has $4 billion and the goal of the foundation is to give away a lot of the money before his death. At some point, he realizes that being that wealthy looks impolite. Jaffe made his money selling erasers, very symbolic.
Alam’s writing is tantalizing, the use of growing more descriptive declarative sentences is very readable, and this is a good foray into lit-fic. I was less impressed with the dialogue and characterization but very intrigued by the symbolism and elements of surprise. Over the course of the book, the reader goes from identifying with Brooke to- in the last few pages- wanting to turn away and hide from her sense of entitlement.
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