Few opening chapters are as unforgettable as Kiley Reid’s debut novel. 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 take on the subconscious race and class that’s to follow.
‘I like it when a scene in the beginning of a novel connects characters that wouldn’t normally interact. I also think of it as setting the stage,’ says Reid over Zoom calling from Ann Arbour, 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 best sellers list, was longlisted for the Booker Prize and chosen by Reese Witherspoon for her illustrious book club. It’s since been picked up by Sight Unseen Productions to make into a film, of which she says ‘The script coming along. I love adaptations that are a bit different from the book, a new take’. In short: it captured a generation and made Reid one of the most exhilarating new voices.
Now she’s back with a new book, Come and Get It. Set at University of Arkansas, the provocative story follows a group of young women (a professor, residential assistant 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 really interested in young people at college, campus culture and money – in particular, the combination of those things,’ she says.
In the spring 2019, about 10 months before Such A Fun Age was released Reid began interviewing students about money. ‘I’m drawn to reading and writing about money and class and the culture of work specifically. There’s this bizarre notion that suffering in your 20s and doing really difficult jobs is somehow character building and makes you deserving of financial stability later. I don’t identify with that philosophy.’
A post-hustle workload is something she’s coming to terms with herself. Now 36 and with a two-and-a-half year old she’s learning to find some balance. ‘I’ve been writing seriously for about 10. I think we have about four to five hours of good quality work in a day. But we’re often working way more than that to make ends meet. We romanticise that [lifestyle] in our 20s, but I don’t think that anyone should have to do those things to be able to eat.’
A lot has changed in the years since she released her debut beyond her toddler impacting her ability to watch a film in one stint. ‘Tar took three nights. I am tired,’she says. But her confidence has grown, too. ‘The first time around I was so nervous. I ended up taking up all these exercise classes at my gym to get that nervous energy out. This time, I will not be going back to the gym. I’m really just excited.’
Her hope for everything she writes is to entertain. ‘I love books that are enjoyable to read. I like humour… I love that page turning feeling and the level of accuracy that sparks memories. Mostly, I hope that this is a novel that can inspire people to look at money in different ways.’ She’s already writing the next one. ‘I feel that the best thing you can do when a book is coming out is to start something new, get obsessed with new ideas, new people, new characters. I’m always writing. It’s in my blood, it’s chemical.’ Whilst Reid is writing, we’ll be reading.
Come And Get It by Kiley Reid (£16.99, Bloomsbury) is published on 30 January 2024.
