Books: “The Rich People Have Gone Away” by Regina Porter

The first year of the pandemic (2020) was especially awful. There were no vaccines, no live concerts, no gyms open either. It was enough for some of us city slickers to give up and flee town altogether.

Regina Porter’s novel “The Rich People Have Gone Away” follows one such couple, Theo and Darla Harper, as they pack up and leave their Park Slope apartment for her family’s cabin in the Catskills.

Once upstate, the couple goes for a hike on the portentously named Devil’s Path hiking trail. They start to argue and in the heat of the moment, Darla runs off, Theo in hot pursuit. She trips and falls very close to the edge of a cliff—and then poof! That’s the last anyone sees of her.

Theo then returns to the car, thinking she must be there. But when she isn’t there, or at the cabin, he alerts the authorities and files a missing persons report. Suddenly however all eyes are on Theo because he was the last person to see her. Why did he leave the trail? Did Theo murder her in a moment of anger?

Something about the search for the missing Darla strikes a chord with the public, and the story goes viral on social media.

That’s the framework upon which Porter builds this artful whodunnit. As the story progresses, we’re introduced to a number of side characters whose lives are also upended by the pandemic. These include Ruby, Darla’s BFF who, together with her Japanese chef husband Katsumi, operate a Brooklyn farm-to-table restaurant, which is closed due to COVID. Xavier, the teenage neighbor, is frightened because his mother has the virus and is on a ventilator.

We also meet Maureen, Darla’s mother, who never liked her son-in-law and is keen to finger him as a killer. She hires a hard-bitten PI, Detective Tender, who is such a great character she deserves a novel of her own.

It’s a pleasure to read such a smart, witty storyteller. Clearly Porter knows what she’s talking about. Her understanding of a variety of subjects—from Japan, to hip-hop culture, to working in a restaurant—is prodigious.

Kudos for Regina Porter, whose earlier work, The Travelers, was a finalist for the Pen/Hemingway award and was long-listed for the Orwell Prize for political fiction. I can’t wait to read her next book. Meanwhile, give this one a shot. It’s, ahem, a killer.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!