Rumaan Alam stopped by the Today show to discuss his latest novel, Entitlement.
Alam’s novel, published in September by Riverhead, follows Brooke Orr, a 33-year-old woman who becomes obsessed with the trappings of wealth after taking a job as an assistant to a billionaire philanthropist. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus wrote that the novel “cements Alam’s status as a talented truth-teller willing to tackle tough issues with grace, generosity, and sensitivity.”
Co-host Jenna Bush Hager asked Alam why he wanted to write his new novel.
“I wanted to pursue the same project I was pursuing in Leave the World Behind, which is a book that can make you feel slightly afraid and sort of question your own attitudes,” Alam said. “In Leave the World Behind, it was a book about fear and information, and in Entitlement, it’s to question the readers’ attitudes about money itself.
Co-host Hoda Kotb noted that money is frequently a taboo subject.
“It’s impolite to talk about money, but I think that money is this abstract force in contemporary life that we all have some relationship to, whether it’s you have too much of it or you are, more likely, in need of it,” he said. “The novel is really asking [about] the ways in which money affects everyday decisions in everyday life.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
