ALAN OPTS OUT

Consumerism, class snobbery, and greed are major targets—along with bad manners and scam artists—in this social satire set among the moneyed denizens of Belleport, a gated community in post-pandemic Greenwich, Connecticut.

The Belleport women’s chat group serves as an effective Greek chorus, not only commenting on events but subtly offering hints to attentive readers about revelations to come. Many of those events and revelations revolve around Alan and Vivian Anderson, a Midwestern couple who relocated from Chicago to Belleport four years earlier, just as Covid-19 hit. Creative director of the successful ad agency he co-owns, 50-ish Alan is used to winning international awards and giant accounts like John Deere. Driven by equally grand but more domestic ambitions, Vivian has set out to rebrand herself as a New England socialite despite her humble working-class background. She has scheduled the building of an expensive swimming pool and, more importantly, has positioned herself to enter the fastidiously cutthroat competition for admission to Belleport’s exclusive women’s social club, the Queen Annes. Inevitably, Alan and Vivian find themselves at cross purposes. Alan loses the $14,000,000 U.S. Dairy account when a farmer named Daniel Ellery, meant to represent an ordinary dairy farmer at Alan’s big pitch, instead proclaims that the world needs less milk, less advertising, less excess all-around. Initially despondent, Alan begins to agree with Daniel. He dons a flowing white shirt, stops wearing shoes, and moves into the abandoned playhouse in the backyard. Vivian believes her dreams are being thwarted by Alan, but also by her daughters. Fifteen-year-old Bailey’s “kinesthetic learning style” is unacceptable at Greenwich’s best private school, and 12-year-old Sunny can talk to animals, a bizarre twist within a generally realistic novel. The tone proves confusing. Alan, Vivian, and the insufferable Queen Anne matriarchs are initially drawn in harsh, cartoonish strokes, but Maum then pulls back on the snark, ultimately asking readers to empathize with the clueless, privileged residents of Belleport.

Brittle lampooning mellows into domestic comedy complete with talking animals and a fairy-tale ending.