Key themes
- The party as the end of a world — and the summer it always comes to
- Celebrity parents and the children who have to become themselves despite them
- The specific damage of being loved and abandoned by someone the world thinks is wonderful
About this book
Four siblings — Nina, Jay, Hud and Kit Riva, children of a famous but absent surf musician — come together for the annual party at Nina's Malibu house in August 1983. As the night unfolds, Reid weaves back through the family's history to show how they got here. A novel about celebrity, abandonment and the summer a world ends.
Published in 2021, Malibu Rising was another TJR phenomenon — immediately a bestseller. Reid described it as her attempt to write a novel with the feel of a long summer in California, where the light makes everything look beautiful and feel temporary.
Discussion questions
- The novel is structured around a single night — Nina Riva's party — while the story ranges back through decades of family history. How does this temporal structure work — does the party justify the backstory?
- Mick Riva is absent, glamorous and deeply damaging. How does Reid show the specific harm of a charismatic absent father — and why is it so hard for his children to see him clearly?
- The four Riva siblings — Nina, Jay, Hud, Kit — each carry the family damage differently. How does Reid differentiate their responses — and which do you find most recognisable?
- The Malibu setting is both aspirational and claustrophobic. What does Reid do with the beach-house California world — as fantasy or as something more complicated?
- Malibu Rising has been described as Reid's most technically ambitious novel. What specifically does the structure attempt — and do you think it succeeds?
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