In Marcy Dermansky’s engrossing novel of (mis)manners Hot Air, third person limited isn’t just a narrative technique, it’s a view of the world where solipsism holds all the cards. Her characters are self-involved, feckless, cruel, and what’s worse, two of them, couple Jonathan and Julia, are ridiculously rich. As their assistant Vivian considers, “It was amazing how easy it was to solve problems when you did not have to worry about how much it cost.”
Of course, things can cost us more than money. A handful of pages into the tale, Jonathan and Julia, contentiously celebrating their anniversary on a hot air balloon ride, crash into Johnny’s pool just as he and Joannie have had their first kiss on their first date. (Yes, four names that begin with J, which leads to some confusion, but also underlines how sadly similar everyone is deep down.) Joannie, the poorest of this foursome, is a divorced mom, eager to move up in the world for her and her daughter, Lucy. Although Joannie has written a semi-successful novel, she has never been able to follow up on it, and therefore perhaps is the closest to a stand-in for the author — who names each chapter after the character’s viewpoint we are privy to in those pages. Dermansky lets loose this zinger, “As a rule, Joanie didn’t like rich people, but she thought that could change if she were to become one.”
The point-of-view technique also means the “Julia” chapters can be almost shocking in their forthrightness. At one point she belittles a child, and we read, “It helped her, somehow, to be rude to this child. Steadied her.” Of course, she’s also the kind of character who forgoes therapy for a prescribing psychiatrist, overjoyed to be diagnosed ADHD and therefore get access to “better pills than she ever hoped for. Essentially speed.” As you can see, the book’s tone is often one of clinical disdain, crafted in very straightforward, declarative sentences that surgically lance its flawed characters. At one point we even get the acid line, “It was not like Jonathan to be reflective.”
That’s our job, to be judge and jury. Not that the book will provide much justice for, and perhaps that’s to, any of its characters. Which should also make us question why we are so entertained to learn of the lives of the rich and repugnant. Dermansky isn’t mining something new, as we’ve learned to look aghast at the likes of Fitzgerald’s Buchanans and the Roy family in Succession, to pick a mere two examples. The risk, of course, is for us to feel somehow superior, to think our morality trumps (yep, used that word on purpose) the blessings provided by bundles of dough. How easily might we all become corrupted by the hopes of a backyard pool to swim in, the ability to instantaneously plan a child’s long dreamed for trip to Harry Potter Land. Heck, to get through writing this review, I had to take a break and shake up myself a martini made with two different exquisite gins, so who am I to feign high dudgeon?
Instead, I will revel in this clever blast of nastiness. Of course there’s sex, surprisingly both hot and complicated, and clearly as much about power as lust. Of course there’s misanthropic philanthropy — it’s kind of a brand for Julia. Of course the wealthy want to be well-appreciated saviors; as a “Jonathan” chapter has it: “[Joannie] had an air of quiet desperation that Jonathan found appealing. Maybe he was like Julia in that way. They both loved the idea of saving people, but it was harder to do than it appeared. All too often, people turned out to be ungrateful, unwilling to change.”
Of course it’s poor eight-year-old Lucy who earns? receives? suffers? the novel’s Joycean epiphany, realizing no one had special powers, that “Harry Potter was a character in a book. She had hoped to see him at Universal Studios, but there were only posters and sculptures and pictures from the movies.” Quite insightful for a youth all the adults hope to define themselves in relation to.
And here you and I are, with Hot Air in our hands.
This review originally appeared in the California Review of Books.
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