The Rich People Have Gone Away

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A diverse group of New Yorkers are brought together by the search for a missing woman in this kaleidoscopic novel of betrayal, race and human connection from the critically acclaimed author of The Travelers.

Brooklyn, 2020. Theo Harper and his pregnant wife, Darla, head upstate to their summer cottage to wait out the lockdown. Not everyone in their upscale Park Slope condo building has their privilege: not Xavier, the teenager in the Cardi B t-shirt, nor Darla’s best friend Ruby and her partner Katsumi, who stay behind to save their Michelin-starred restaurant.

During an upstate hike on the aptly named Devil’s Path, Theo divulges a long-held secret—and when Darla disappears after the ensuing argument, he finds himself the prime suspect. As Darla and Theo’s families and friends come together to search for her, with Ruby and Katsumi stepping in to broker the peace, past and present collide with startling consequences. For many brought back into the fold by Darla’s disappearance—even those glimpsed fleetingly in the building lobby—it is a chance to renew connections or to review distances: what brings them together, and what sets them apart.

Set against the pulse of an ever-changing city, The Rich People Have Gone Away connects the lives of ordinary New Yorkers to tell a powerful story of hope, love, and inequity in our times—while reminding us that no one leaves the past behind completely.“The Rich People Have Gone Away is wildly intelligent, brilliantly crafted, prismatic, living and breathing—a remarkable feat of sensation and humanity. Regina Porter is a marvel.”—Claire Lombardo, New York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had

“Regina Porter has written another marvel of a novel. The Rich People Have Gone Away gives the reader a spiraling cross section of richly drawn, impeccably observed New Yorkers. . . . A kind of masterpiece of human portraiture that simultaneously renders quintessential depictions of the city, of America, and of the whole world in these first fraught decades of the twenty-first century.”—Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Tinkers and National Book Award finalist This Other Eden

“Exquisitely drawn characters, scenes that jump off the page, and international locales that’ll make you want to pack a bag and go: The Rich People Have Gone Away is a novel that fearlessly defies conventions to deliver a satiating, five-star experience. A keen observer of people and class, Regina Porter has crafted an inventive, hilarious, and wholly unpredictable work full of vibrant prose and genuine tenderness. . . . A seven-course meal that gets better and better.”—Mateo Askaripour, New York Times bestselling author of Black Buck

“A lush study of relationships, keen on the particulars of vast human catastrophes.”—Raven Leilani, New York Times bestselling author of LusterRegina Porter is an award-winning playwright and author of The Travelers, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and longlisted for the Orwell Political Fiction Prize. A graduate of the MFA fiction program at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, her writing has been published in the Harvard Review, Tin House, and the Oxford Review.US

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