Such a Fun Age made her a literary star. Now with a follow-up that looks at money, she asks ELLE’s Lena de Casparis if hustle culture is really worth it
FEW OPENING CHAPTERS IN FICTION ARE as memorable as that of Kiley Reid’s debut novel Such a Fun Age. If you missed it: Emira Tucker, a Black nanny in her twenties, is accused of having kidnapped the white child she is looking after when a security guard spots her in the freezer aisle of a supermarket late one night. The racially charged incident pulsates from the page, a tantalising taste of the astute critique of subconscious racism and class structures that follows. ‘I like it when a scene at the start of a novel connects characters that wouldn’t normally interact. I think of it as setting the stage,’ says Reid over Zoom, calling from Ann Arbor, where she lives and teaches at the University of Michigan. ‘I talk to my students about this. I believe that your first chapter is teaching your audience how to read your book.’
Such a Fun Age went on to take the number three spot on The New York Times bestsellers list, was longlisted for the Booker Prize and chosen by Reese Witherspoon for her illustrious book club. It has since been picked up by film-maker and actor Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Productions to be adapted for the big screen. She says, ‘The script is coming along. I love adaptations that are a bit different from the book, a new take.’ In short: the novel captured a generation and made Reid one of its most exhilarating new voices.
Now she’s back with anew book, Come and Get It. Set at the University of Arkansas, the provocative story follows a group of women (a professor, residential assistant and three students) whose lives intersect around some bad decisions. Expect dorm pranks and explorations of socioeconomic divisions and the true cost of success.
‘I became interested in young people at college, campus culture and money – in particular, the combination of those things,’ she says. In the spring of 2019, about 10 months before Such aFun Age was released, Reid began interviewing students about economics. ‘I’m drawn to reading and writing about money and class, and the culture of work. There’s this bizarre notion that suffering in your twenties and doing difficult jobs are character-building and make you de
