Entitlement: A Novel

by Rumaan Alam Narrated by Not Yet Available

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Reading a novel by Rumaan Alam (Leave the World Behind) is always a pleasure — sharp dialogue, surprising characters (even the ones that make us mad), and very smart observations about who we are and what drives us, from love and money to family and more.

A novel of money and morality from the New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind

Brooke wants. She isn't in need, but there are things she wants. A sense of purpose, for instance. She wants to make a difference in the world, to impress her mother along the way, to spend time with friends and secure her independence. Her job assisting an octogenarian billionaire in his quest to give away a vast fortune could help her achieve many of these goals. It may inspire new desires as well: proximity to wealth turns out to be nothing less than transformative. What is money, really, but a kind of belief?

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.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

07/08/2024

Alam (Leave the World Behind) delivers an unsettling novel about a 30-something middle-class Black New Yorker unmoored by her billionaire boss’s wealth and power. After spending nine years teaching at a Bronx charter school, Brooke Orr hopes to fulfill her passion for arts education by taking an administrative job at a foundation set up by businessman Asher Jaffee, 83, to disperse his fortune. Brooke impresses Asher with her dedication, and he tasks her with finding a group to fund, prompting Brooke to convince the skeptical director of a Brooklyn children’s dance company to accept an award in the event that Asher deems the company worthy of a grant. The more Brooke puts into her job, the less connected she is to her old life, to the point that she feels nothing after hearing a close family friend has died in a car accident. As Brooke spends more time with Asher, she becomes convinced she’s “entitled” to her own “place in the world,” a reasonable belief that grows warped as she fixates on the Manhattan apartment she’s trying to buy but can’t afford. As she progresses on her quest to get what she deserves, the slow-burn narrative builds to a strange and provocative crisis point. Readers will want to stick around for Brooke’s reckoning. Agent: Julie Barer, Book Group. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

Praise for ENTITLEMENT:

“Cements Alam’s status as a talented truth teller willing to tackle tough issues with grace, generosity, and sensitivity." 
—Kirkus, STARRED review

“Should come with an undertow warning . . . I was pulled under. Rumaan Alam has mastered that eerie moment when an ordinary gesture has the potential for disaster.”
—Louise Erdrich, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Night Watchman
 
“Entitlement is needle-sharp: discomfiting, disquieting, mesmerizing. Alam taps deep into the greed and ambition that make us human.”
—Rebecca Makkai, New York Times bestselling author of The Great Believers

“Held me spellbound from its evocative opening to its startling, audacious last pages.”
—Danzy Senna, nationally bestselling author of Colored Television

“These characters, their money, and their morality come together in an absolutely devastating thunderclap.” 
—Kiley Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Such a Fun Age

“Reading Entitlement felt like having a vise slowly tightened around my heart. . . . Elegant, precise and devastating.”
—Charles Yu, National Book Award–winning author of Interior Chinatown

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191540122
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	09/17/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	483,020