👋 Hello readers!👋

It's February, which means it's time to start reading Such a Fun Age. Kiley Reid’s much-discussed debut examines the relationship between a wealthy white couple and their young and broke black babysitter, Emira. Reid shows the uncomfortable ways that relationship strains and how the couple’s good intentions are challenged after Emira is accused of kidnapping the couple’s daughter while shopping with her one night. It’s a canny, scintillating, and deeply thoughtful exploration of race, class, and privilege — and I hope you love it!

Share your thoughts! As always, you can reply directly to this email with your comments or questions, or join the conversation here.

Happy reading,

Arianna

📚 Behind the Book 📚

We asked Kiley Reid to tell us a bit about how Such a Fun Agecame to be. Here's what she had to say.

I started with the number three. There's something about a room with three people that incites jealousy, a constant switch of allegiance, and a slight glitch in the code of human behavior and etiquette. The caretaker, mother, and child is an old story, but its pained history continues to perpetuate a tricky balance of power.

Such A Fun Age starts on a Saturday night in 2015. Emira Tucker is a 25-year-old babysitter who is called to watch nearly 3-year-old Briar Chamberlain while the Chamberlains deal with a family emergency. Emira and Briar roam the aisles of a high end grocery store. They hold hands and dance to Whitney Houston — until a concerned customer and security guard, upon seeing a black woman with a white child, accuse her of kidnapping. Another customer pulls out his phone and begins to record. Emira is hurt and humiliated.

Alix Chamberlain, Briar's mother, sets out to right the night's wrongs. But her loneliness as a new Philadelphia resident, matched with her rising intrigue of her new employee, collide in feelings that aren't completely unlike a crush. What emerges is a comedy of good intentions, and what happens when we do the right thing for the wrong reasons.

I love dialogue that is so familiar and sad that makes me physically cringe. I've always been fascinated by domestic and emotional labor, and what it feels like to work in someone else's home. And I love characters that are frustratingly non-binary on all terms; especially when I want to simultaneously hug them and shake them. Perhaps this is why I don't enjoy math, but my goal has always been to tell a gripping story where the plot continues to twist and turn, and concrete answers are impossible to find.

Natalie Rovendro shared the HarperCollins reading guide, which asks questions like: What is it about Lillian that makes her uniquely equipped for this job? What might the nature of the twins' condition represent? Natalie wants to discuss —join her here!

According to author Kevin Wilson, the twins' condition, in some ways, represents the volatility of young children in general — and his sons specifically: "My wife and I have two kids, and I realized how raising them oftentimes felt like handling children who really could burst into flames at any moment, their emotions always so heightened, right on the surface. "

Readers loved and really related to Lillian. Alisha Deurloo Neumann wrote, "I loved Lillian’s realness! The twins were like wild wounded animals. They just needed someone to love them unconditionally." Luísa Turbino Torres added, "The characters feel so real I can see myself doing or thinking like them. I love Lillian's way of dealing with the kids. She doesn't treat them like they were dumb the same way a lot of adults do both in real life and fiction."

Let's talk about the ending! We've got a thread started here with some questions posed: The book ends with a lot up in the air — how do you feel about the twins staying with Lillian? When do you think Bessie and Roland really start to trust Lillian — and when do you think she really starts to love them? What are your thoughts on Madison — and what will it mean that her son seems to have this "condition" as well?