Book Review: Entitlement by Rumaan Alam

Published late last year, Entitlement by Rumaan Alam has been on a few “best of” lists this year--earning praise from authors such as Roxane Gay and Rebecca Makkai--and it’s very well done, if not necessarily a page-turner. Alam is most famous for his apocalyptic thriller Leave the World Behind, which was made into a Netflix film starring Julia Roberts and Kevin Bacon. This quieter novel centers around Brooke, a Black woman in her early 30s who has had a comfortable, if not remarkable, life. She spent 10 years teaching in the arts at a charter school in the Bronx, and now she has landed a job as a program manager at a foundation run by Asher Jaffee, a billionaire in his 80s.

Brooke’s white adoptive mother, Maggie--a lawyer who advocates for women’s rights--tends to favor Brooke’s younger brother, also adopted, who is white and about to get married, while Brooke doesn’t have any prospects in that arena. In fact, Brooke overhears her mother complain about her to a friend: “I spent a small fortune on Vassar and she’s a secretary to some zillionaire.”

Brooke sees her position at the foundation a bit differently. She becomes a pet project of and confidant to Asher Jaffee and definitely has some delusions, both of grandeur and that she’s the victim of a mysterious criminal who stabs women with needles on the subway. Brooke’s perspective on this is a bit unreliable, so the reader is left wondering if the “subway pricker” is real, which makes things even more interesting. The author interjects real life here, as there were incidents of people being assaulted with needles on the New York City subway in 2016. Brooke has feared the subway pricker for so long

that she manifests being a victim--whether real or just in her mind--and starts to change as if she really did get “infected” with something (greed, perhaps?).

Brooke is feeling incredibly disconnected from two of her long-time friends, one of whom is buying a lavish apartment with inherited wealth which Brooke is keenly aware of and wants for herself. She begins to fixate on what wealth can do for her, while quietly stepping back from her family and friends. Asher has given her some leeway to find a project to support that will “wow” him and make him look good, and Brooke eagerly delves into finding it, as if Asher’s legacy can somehow be part of own. As a result of this hyper-focus, she feels nothing at the death of her honorary auntie, a long-time friend of her mother’s. This disconnect turns her persona from that of an altruistic former teacher to something else entirely.

The project she focuses on for the foundation is a dance company for Black children in the basement of a church. The director is not interested in charity, but Brooke doesn’t give up, not because she cares about these children, but because she feels Asher’s money can “save” them and it will look good. When Asher loses interest in the project, Brooke does too, and she doesn’t feel an ounce of regret for making promises she didn’t fulfill.

Asher likes Brooke and tries to open up her world, including taking her to a symphony concert and giving her some professional freedom at the foundation. Brooke is beautiful, but her relationship with Asher isn’t necessarily related to that, though Brooke certainly thinks about how she can use that privilege, just as Asher uses his plentiful privilege to his advantage. Brooke’s proximity to wealth makes her do things such as forging documents to get the apartment she wants (why save and work for it when others in her life don’t have to?), breaking and entering, and expensing a variety of personal purchases–all things to which she feels “entitled.” The reader knows this isn’t how things work and is left wondering if it’s only a matter of time before Brooke gets caught.

The book jacket has this to say about the novel: Taut, unsettling, and alive to the seductive distortions of money, Entitlement is a riveting tale for our new gilded age, a story that confidently considers questions about need and worth, race and privilege, philanthropy and generosity, passion and obsession. It is a provocative, propulsive novel about the American imagination.

Brooke is a protagonist that isn’t exactly easy to root for, but we nonetheless are fascinated by her journey and the actions that eventually make her feel free. Rumaan Alam certainly has commentary to share about our world, and in Brooke he has created a fascinating conduit.