The Rich People Have Gone Away

by Regina Porter

Brooklyn, 2020. Theo Harper and his pregnant wife Darla head upstate to their summer cottage to wait out the lockdown. Not everyone in their fancy apartment building has this: not Xavier, the restless teenager in the Cardi B t-shirt, or Darla’s black best friend Ruby and her partner Katsumi, who stay behind to save their restaurant. During an upstate hike, Theo lets slip a long-held secret about his mixed-up ancestry—and when Darla disappears after the ensuing argument, he suddenly finds himself the prime suspect at the centre of a front-page police search for the perfect missing woman.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Audiobook

343 pages, Hardcover

First published August 6, 2024

About the author

Regina Porter is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. She is the recipient of a 2017-2018 Rae Armour West Postgraduate Scholarship. She is also a 2017 Tin House Scholar. Her fiction has been published in The Harvard Review. An award-winning writer with a background in playwriting, Porter has worked with Playwrights Horizons, the Joseph Papp Theater, New York Stage and Film, the Women’s Project, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and Horizon Theatre Company. She has been anthologized in Plays from Woolly Mammoth by Broadway Play Services and Heinemann’s Scenes for Women by Women. She has also been profiled in Southern Women Playwrights: New Essays in History and Criticism from the University of Alabama Press. Porter was born in Savannah, Georgia, and lives in Brooklyn.

photo credit Liz Lazarus

Reviews

[Ron Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

By now, we can all spot the symptoms: that little tickle in the front pages, some congestion along the dust jacket, a certain stiffness in the spine.

It’s already too late: You’ve got a full-blown covid novel.

There’s no cure except to spend the next three or four days in social isolation until it’s finished. But honestly, if it’s as good as Regina Porter’s “The Rich People Have Gone Away,” you won’t mind quarantining.

That’s a particularly astonishing accomplishment considering that just four years after the virus came to these shores, we’re already packing up the covid-19 pandemic in the memory chest that holds the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918. But Porter’s witty new novel, the follow-up to her 2019 debut, “The Travelers,” is bold enough to wave away the gathering fog of amnesia. She reminds us of madly wiping down the kitchen, walking along eerily silent streets, tensing up when someone joins us in an elevator, arguing with unmasked boors who did their own research, googling “where to find toilet paper,” hearing the word “intubation” for the first time and then learning that there aren’t enough ventilators.

Of course, if the only thing “The Rich People Have Gone Away” had to offer were a stroll past a line of refrigerated morgue trucks, I’d tell you to avoid it like the plague. But Porter is doing so much more in this surprisingly delightful and challenging novel. She holds the covid pandemic up to the light and uses it as a prism to separate the mingled wavelengths of American society. The virus itself may not have discriminated, but it was endured by different kinds of people in tragically different ways. You can see some of that illumination right in the title, which nods to the panic that sent moneyed folks scurrying away from cities. But she’s equally interested in the way covid interacted with a much older and more pernicious virus known as racism.

In the opening pages of “The Rich People Have Gone Away” — April 2020 — Theo Harper’s apartment building in Park Slope is so empty that he can enjoy having sex in doorways on the ninth floor. That’s a fair marker of the man’s brazenness and his liminal nature. Porter narrates in a bifurcated tone that channels Theo’s egotism while also holding him at the end of a pin. It’s a technique that renders him both fascinating and repugnant. He’s a. . . .

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...

[Brandice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed The Rich People Have Gone Away, a literary fiction story about a pregnant woman who goes missing after an argument with her husband in the woods. Like many others, Theo and Darla Harper leave NYC in the early days of the pandemic. On their way to Darla’s family cottage upstate, they stop in the woods for a hike as part of their usual routine, but this time, they do not leave the woods together.

This story follows Theo, Darla, and others in New York connected to the couple and the search for Darla. The Rich People Have Gone Away explores secrets, relationships, class, and more. The characters are flawed and authentic and even when I didn’t find certain characters likable, I felt invested in each of their stories.

The pandemic is a prominent theme in this book — 2-4 years ago, this would have been a hard pass for me because I just wasn’t interested in reading about it but timing is key, and I’m glad I gave this one a shot. While I can see that this may not be a book for everyone, it definitely worked well for me. The writing was smart and the story different, in a good way — 4.5 stars (rounded up)

Thank you to Netgalley and Hogarth Books for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Traci Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. It captured me from the start and I was invested in the characters. I think this is a very strong "COVID novel" and it explores a lot of ideas around who we become in moments of crisis. I think there were a few too many perspectivs in the book overall, but think Porter pulled off a really solid book.

[Hollie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Holy fever dream Batman. This novel told through short vignettes of various interconnected characters explores race, history, family, and friendship during the pandemic. When Theo and his wife Darla get into a fight out on the trails in upstate New York, a fight ensures leaving Darla frightened and fleeing into the woods. Her disappearance brings interrogation and eyes onto what has been happening.

This book tried to do a lot of things all at once. We had 9/11, racism, COVID, upward mobility, polyamory, and a whole lore more in one novel. While I felt like there was a lot happening that kept me in the book it felt disjointed and I found myself asking why all of these different moments were necessary to tell the story.

[Emillie · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF, the central plot was so engaging, it just felt painful having to sit through the chapters in between which introduced too many characters that I was never going to remember

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't wait to read this book! Already a fan of Regina Porter's from The Travelers, this too is a rich, multi-racial, multi-point-of-view novel--this time circling around the disappearance of a pregnant woman on a hike with her husband in the woods in upstate New York--the pair have left New York for a bit of reprieve during COVID. The story widens as it explores the lives of a web of husbands, wives, friends, parents, neighbors, cops, co-workers-- whose lives are in various ways knit in with theirs.

While I was reading it, it reminded me of "A Little Life"--though far less gruesome, also a far more diverse cast--as the portrait of a circle, each character from their own point of view. Porter is a master at carrying simultaneous and linking stories, though unlike her first novel, these characters aren't representing a generational cascade following a central event--these are all present-contemporary parallel lives--including but not limited to: a kid living apart from his family as his mother is hospitalized with COVID, the sex-addicted husband (a total asshole and my favorite character, actually), the mother of the missing woman--whose own husband was lost in the attack on the World Trade Center, and the woman's best friend, a chef. Issues of privilege, issues of race, issues of friendship and love and the nuances of relationship, the fight to succeed and the rebellion around success. A variegated, shimmering, compelling read.

[Jen Lindner · Rating 2 out of 5]

In more capable hands, this may have been a good book. However, it ended up being just a lot of disjointed navel gazing by a lot of unlikeable people.

[Jen Fournier · Rating 1 out of 5]

Got 135 pages in. Realized that I did not care what happened next to even one of the characters. Looked at my stack of other books waiting to be read. DNF.

[Erin (from Long Island, NY) · Rating 4 out of 5]

More of a character study than a police procedural/missing person or mystery. There were quite a few characters & their backstories, as well as how they contributed to where/who they are in the present & how they interconnect with each other. Not the kind of book you can listen to without paying attention! But the author was exceptional at making these people genuinely human- the good and the bad. Well done.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you can imagine the worst people you know thinking they’re important, then you know what this book was. There were viewpoints that didn’t matter or hold weight to the story, unnecessary background, and the absolute most miserable main characters you’ll acquaint yourself with. The only redeeming character was Tabitha and her side story also made no difference to the story at large. The author wanted to do a lot but it wasn’t cohesive.

[Antonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I really enjoyed this but I'm not sure I would have if I didn't currently live in NYC. I also think there's one huge twist that will potentially upset a ton of readers... anyway I would still recommend.

[Faith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hated these people (and there were too many of them) and I don’t want to be reminded of the pandemic. Abandoned. I enjoyed “The Travelers”, so I was very disappointed by this book. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

[Akeating2003 · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. way too graphic on the first page for me to continue

[Ciara]

I'm only 50 pages in, but I just needed to come here & lament that a character who is apparently so obsessed with Prince that she traveled internationally to see him perform well after he become a Jehovah's Witness & got super-weird states that he died in 2017. I feel like even a pretty casual Prince fan knows that Prince died on April 21, 2016. Obviously this isn't really relevant to the plot, but Porter chose to create a character that introduces herself to us through her love of Prince. The least she could do is Google an obit real quick to make sure she has the year right.

[Angie Miale · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a weird book. From the description, I thought this would be a missing person mystery set during Covid. I appreciated the characterization and descriptions. The stories themselves seem disjointed and unrelated, although they are loosely related to each other. My brain kept trying. To make them connect more. I think it was strange and uncomfortable that the main characters were polyamorous. Maybe I am small minded or judgmental, but that’s just something I don’t understand. Maybe that was supposed to intentionally make me uncomfortable, I don’t know.

Ironically I read this while being sick with COVID-19 and quarantining in Iowa.

I was left with a lot of questions, but this was still a worthy read.

Thanks to @netgalley and @randomhouse for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Book to be published August 6,2024

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book read like a fever dream to me, & not in a fun way. i was really confused by theo’s whole deal (what the fuck are you even on about your 30%), and why no one had any conversations like normal people. this book feels like it was written by aliens & had wayyyy too many characters (some who have pages dedicated to their back story when they have a .05% connection to the plot at best). also the random pictures took me out of the story. overall i sunk too much time into this book for sub-par payoff.

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus)]

! ! !

[JOHN N REEVES · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was the best-reviewed book I've read this year and it was also the worst. Utterly unlikable characters, an absurd plot, laughable dialogue and a host of clichés. Awful.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn’t going to review The Rich People Have Gone Away by Regina Porter. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either and I don’t want to be seen as recommending it. But I ended up having a lot of thoughts on it and a review is a good opportunity to get them out of my head and articulated on virtual paper.

The Rich People Have Gone Away is set during COVID times when wealthy New Yorkers sought to escape the city for upstate boltholes. Together with her husband, Theo, Darla who is pregnant retreats from their Brooklyn home to Only she goes missing on a hike after an argument with Theo. This is the narrative plot and is an excellent set up for a crime mystery novel. However, that’s not where Porter takes her story and instead we get detailed character studies of people close to x and Darla living through the Covid pandemic and lockdown – her husband, her best friend, the boy housesitting his cousin’s apartment while his mother is on a ventilator. The mystery disappearance or the character study could work by themselves but they did not work together at all. The boy housesitting wasn’t mentioned for a third of the book.

While the switching between plot-driven and character-driven was frustrating, it was the tangential, detailed, and slightly bonkers back stories given to every minor character who came into contact with our four main protagonists. Most of the time this was surpefluous that added little to plot or characterisation. For example, did we need to read about Ruby’s uncle’s descent into crack addiction and overdose who ended up dying after slipping in the bathroom and cracking his head. How about the detective who discovered during an investigation into a kidnapping that the culprit was her third cousin who had buried bodies of other kidnapping and murder victims under the family home where they celebrated Thanksgiving. It was certainly way too much unnecessary information that could have been edited out. Or in the case of the Fijian-Australian Ruby met in Japan whose parents were Fijian revolutionaries, it could have been better written to show the impact of that friendship on Ruby’s character development. There's a good crime novel here but the tangential stories of characters circulating the main protagonists was distracting.

Also, a lot of the narrative tension hinges on one of the characters revealing they are 30% Black. As somebody not from the US, I think it’s weird to express one’s cultural background as a percentage (I would never say I’m 50% English) but social media has taught me this isn’t unusual in the US. As a plot point, it didn’t work for me because I am not from the US.

All that being said, I enjoyed my time with this novel. It was probably the casual read that I needed after reading some more literary works. If you can put up with a hybrid mystery / character novel with some detailed back stories, this might be for you.

[Jen Hyatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess I have class issues because books about rich people who run away from responsibility just aren’t my jam. Every adult character in the novel pulls an escape act of some sort, some more despicable than others, and not a single character shows shame or remorse for their selfish behavior, even when they inexplicably abandon people they supposedly love. There is a pervasive level of careless callousness that got under my skin. Theo in particular is one of the cringiest characters I have encountered. Everything he says and does is just… wrong.

What Porter does well is capture the tense mood and atmosphere in NYC during COVID, as well as the accompanying racial tension of the time, including the murder of George Floyd.

I wanted to like this novel but could not find any sense of redemption or hope for the characters, except young Xavier. They are all too self-involved, unhappy, and oblivious to their privilege.

[Marisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This took me a very long time to get into, and a very long time to finish. I considered a DNF, but was engaged enough in the plot(s?) to push through.

The story generally focused on Darla going missing after a hike with her husband during the height of the COVID pandemic, but there are other loosely related story lines that weave into this greater plot. A lot of it felt a little unnecessary, maybe even too loosely connected, to feel relevant to the greater story. It certainly made for too many characters that were easy to forget until the next time they were mentioned chapters later.

Overall, an ok read, but not really one I’d mention beyond this review.

[Char Reid · Rating 2 out of 5]

Darla was so selfish and really made me angry throughout the book. I don’t understand the significance of Zay and his family. Their stories did not seem to overlap

[Berit☀️✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somehow, this book was labeled a thriller. I believe a reader expecting a thriller from this book does it a disservice. This was an intriguing and slightly quirky character-driven story. It’s set in New York City after the wealthy people have left. The story takes place in 2020, during the pandemic, so if you’re not ready to read a pandemic book yet, this one’s not for you. I thought the author did an excellent job with character development, even though I didn’t particularly like many of the characters. The audiobook was well-narrated, and the story kept me engaged throughout.

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very Leave the World Behind meets Gone Girl, but add in bassoons, polyamory and covid.

Very much a covid novel. It doesn't try to be anything else other than an exploration of how people react to moments of crisis...and how much we are really connected when we are all awful, self-centered people living awful, self-centered lives.

[Samira Traore · Rating 1 out of 5]

[ab]

Finished, but at what cost?? I thought this book made a pretty lazy attempt at describing race. I found every character (except Tabitha Ruth and her partner) insufferable. This book felt like a series of half baked thoughts.

[Jill]

Very 2020 Covid and rather odd. Started strong but one too many side characters that weren’t fully explored.

[Umbar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a deeply 2020s novel (and not just because of the Covid setting) but it’s done in a way that makes me think it wont feel incredibly dated in 10 years. More a relic of its times. Many times I thought it was too soon to be reading about Covid - I hate to use the word triggering in a review but it seriously was - but I ended up really loving it. Enjoyment was slightly impeded by the number of side characters but it was a good story. I’m not huge into high stakes murder crime novels, a light mystery like this is probably my comfort zone.

This was my first “Covid novel” (I think..) and will be the benchmark for any that follow.

[Coley · Rating 4 out of 5]

great writing! plot wasn’t as sensational as it sounded, but this book is also literary fiction and not a mystery so i should have adjusted my expectations accordingly. reminds me of a book my professors would have been all over lol. probably didn’t give it as much attention as it deserved, but still thoroughly enjoyed it!

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Received this book via Goodreads giveaway — not sure I would have read it otherwise, but I’m glad I did. So 2020 but I’m not completely mad about it, plus a surprising plot twist.

[Kaitlyn Novotny · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot going on in this book...maybe too much to want to keep track of it all. The fun part was that I happened to be in Tokyo when I got to the part of Ruby leaving the ivy league for a trip abroad to Japan and many of the places/customs mentioned I was experiencing simultaneously to this reading. Other than that, I ended the book on a flat note best summed up with the sentiment, "...ok?" I'm still not even sure how all the characters relate or are relevant to the story.