THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS

A playwright and a toff join forces in an attempt to expose the bias of theater culture in this debut novel.

Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo goes by “Eddie.” A Black woman raised in London by her mother, an immigrant from Botswana, she explains, “As I sauntered into my teenage years, social standing and appearance became everything, and I had a name that was practically oral acrobatics…a name that received a predictable scroll of questions about the meaning. A suggestion that ‘Eddie’ might be easier.” Her acquiescence to this suggestion in many ways sets the tone for the book. Eddie is fresh out of university and finishing her latest, best play when she meets Hugo Lawrence Smith, a wealthy white law student and professed theater lover. After rounds and rounds of rejection and a keen understanding of the inherent racism at work, Eddie asks Hugo to submit the play under his name. No surprise that it becomes a huge success. There are as many layers here as in a croissant and it’s just as rich, but beware of enjoying it too much—Jay is always exposing new levels of rancidity in the world. Eddie’s play is a dystopian fable about immigration and the "myth of meritocracy,” but everyone takes it at face value that Hugo could have written it. Hugo himself seems like a surprisingly stand-up guy—doing exactly as Eddie says at every juncture, studying theater in order to represent her play well—but his streak of selfishness further jeopardizes their already complex and risky entanglement. And Eddie’s awareness of the rigged system is matched only by her penchant for self-sabotage. Jay plays with romantic conventions, employs thriller-esque pacing, and seems to be having fun. Readers will, too.

An assured and nimble satire.