Review: Entitlement by Rumaan Alam

Contemporary fiction often shies away from taking a direct look at the nature and effects of money. One exception was John Lanchester’s Capital, which explored the interconnected lives of individuals in London after the financial crash of 2008. More recently, Hernan Diaz’s Trust examined the secrets behind an American millionaire’s wealth and his efforts to control how his legacy was viewed by the world.

Rumaan Alam’s Entitlement can be read as another addition to this slim canon. His earlier novel, Leave the World Behind, was a skilful and nuanced exploration of societal inequities against an end-of-the-world backdrop, which was turned into an overly dramatic Netflix production. In his new work, he delves deeper into the ways that race, class, and ambition shape our lives, a process accelerated by the accumulation of wealth.
Two characters form the opposite poles of the novel, which is set in New York in 2014, a time and place described as “Obama’s placid America”. First, there is Brooke, a Black thirty-something former Bronx schoolteacher, and second, Asher, a sprightly octogenarian billionaire pondering over his life and what he wants to leave behind.
Brooke starts work at Asher’s foundation, which has been set up for “the exalted task” of giving away his fortune to worthwhile causes. Asher is taken with her forthrightness: “This woman, Brooke, Black, gorgeous, serious, passionate, was the sort of woman he wanted at the foundation, the sort of woman he wanted working in his name. It was electric, almost chemical.” Soon, the two form a bond that’s somewhere between personal and professional.
This is an intriguing premise, but unfortunately, Entitlement soon starts to sag. The novel follows Brooke on her daily work activities as well as meetings with her adoptive white mother, close relatives, and friends. During her commutes, she has to watch out for a deranged individual dubbed the Subway Pricker who is causing panic by jabbing at unsuspecting passengers with a hypodermic. If that’s a metaphor for citizens being infected by competitive materialism, it’s a trifle heavy-handed.
The others in Brooke’s circle all seem to have more focus than her, but now, her position as a philanthropic decision-maker offers a chance to reconsider her life and goals. The proximity to wealth makes her look at the world through a new lens, and her relationship with Asher gives her the confidence to be more outspoken.
This meretricious attitude extends to both work-related decisions and personal purchases. When splurging on new clothes, for example, the sound of a credit card placed on the table becomes her contribution to “the symphony of American commerce, a whisper that said she was there, she was alive, she was this person, she was worthy of these things, and deserved so much more than she had”.
Aman deftly contrasts interiors to drive home divisions between the characters. Scenes alternate between crowded public transport and the luxurious back seat of a Bentley; Brooklyn bistros and high-end Manhattan restaurants; small, cluttered homes and expansive, elegant living spaces.
When Brooke comes across a community dance school run out of a basement, she strongly feels that this would be a perfect vehicle for Asher’s munificence. At around the same time, she chooses a new apartment to move into, recklessly assuring the broker that money and paperwork won’t be a problem. The novel becomes bleaker as she sets out to convince Asher to support these endeavours. As a result, the nature of privilege and guardianship of wealth are even more exposed.
Some of the novel’s satire is pointed, such as the reactions of those in Asher’s foundation to a Black woman in a position of power. Many times, though, it is blunt, for example when Brooke observes that all fashionable restaurants look the same. The novel contains other platitudes, with people speaking about money making the world go round and love making life worthwhile.
Despite the novel’s concerns, and its setting in the wake of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, the protest receives only a token mention. The characters are more preoccupied by self-serving conversations about the meaning of personal success rather than the effects of structural inequality. Also odd is the opening line, an obvious nod to the first sentence of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. After all, the two novels are hardly similar in their aims.
Alam’s Leave the World Behind effectively conveyed its themes through subtlety and suggestion. In contrast, Entitlement takes a more explicit approach, which does it a disservice.
Sanjay Sipahimalani is a Mumbai-based writer and reviewer.