Rumaan Alam offers a scintillating exploration of ambition in ‘Entitlement.’

On this episode of Fully Booked, Rumaan Alam joins us to discuss Entitlement(Riverhead, Sept. 17)—a novel that “cements Alam’s status as a talented truth-teller willing to tackle tough issues with grace, generosity, and sensitivity,” Kirkus writes in a starred review.

Alam is the author of Rich and Pretty, That Kind of Mother, and 2020 National Book Award finalist Leave the World Behind, which was made into a major motion picture starring Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali. His writing has appeared in outlets includingthe New York Times, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, and the New Republic, where he is a contributing editor. He lives in New York with his family.

Here’s a bit more from our review of Entitlement: “Whereas Alam’s previous book, Leave the World Behind (2020)…focused on cataclysmic external threats, his new novel explores a threat from within: ambition. Or maybe that’s not quite right, because the blinding ambition of Alam’s protagonist, Brooke Orr, a Vassar-educated Black woman raised in New York City by a mission-driven white mother, is shaped by the world in which she finds herself and is propelled by its inequities. After years in an unrewarding teaching job at a Bronx charter school, Brooke, 33, takes a job as a program coordinator at 83-year-old white billionaire Asher Jaffee’s charitable foundation and is embraced as his protégé. But once Brooke has been welcomed into Asher’s place of privilege, she believes she is entitled to all it can provide….As Brooke makes increasingly ill-advised decisions, the tension slowly and compellingly builds toward a dizzying conclusion that feels both surprising and inevitable. Here, as always, Alam’s facility for vividly setting a scene or finding just the right detail or metaphor, his ability to journey inside the minds and emotions of a range of people, and his willingness to unflinchingly and insightfully address issues of race, class, gender, and age are on full display.”

Alam introduces Entitlement by calling it “a book about money,” and explains why that’s “kind of a cheat.” We discuss Brooke and Asher: how they regard themselves at the beginning of the book; how they regard one another; and how their relationship changes. We talk about the setting—pre-pandemic New York—and the subplot involving the Subway Pricker, a criminal who pricks women with a hypodermic needle. We contemplate the consequences of proximity to privilege, whether the novel is a morally neutral form, and why so many forthcoming novels are set in pre-pandemic times.

Then editors Laura Simeon, Mahnaz Dar, John McMurtrie, and Laurie Muchnick share their top picks in books for the week.

EDITORS’ PICKS:

The Beautiful Game by Yamile Saied Méndez (Little, Brown)

John the Skeleton by Triinu Laan, illus. by Marja-Liisa Plats, trans. by Adam Cullen (Yonder)

Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark by Leigh Ann Henion (Algonquin)

A Reason To See You Again by Jami Attenberg (Ecco/HarperCollins)

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

Rear-View Reflections on Radical Change by Linda Mary Wagner

Do the Next New Thing by Pamela Lamp

Aylen Isle by Aud Supplee

Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.