Reading Kiley Reid’s fiction feels a bit like watching a prestige TV series. There are expansive casts of characters, many of whom happen to be good-looking. The plots are pacy and compelling, motored by flashbacks and cliffhangers and twists, while also dealing with social issues – particularly race and class – that add intellectual heft. Dialogue is hyper-realistic, often written out phonetically (“Ohmygod” is a favourite) so that you can hear it aloud in your head. No wonder the screen rights for Reid’s debut novel, the Booker-longlisted Such a Fun Age, were snapped up before it hit the shelves in 2019. It will be a surprise if her sophomore effort, Come and Get It, doesn’t soon land a similar deal.
In Such a Fun Age, Reid explored the fraught relationship between a babysitter, Emira, and her employer, Alix. Chapters alternated between their perspectives as the two characters processed the fallout from an incident in a food store in Philadelphia where Emira, a Black woman, was accused of kidnapping Alix’s white daughter. In Come and Get It, Reid widens her scope: now there are three central characters whose lives intersect, personally and professionally, on the campus of the University of Arkansas. Agatha Paul is a writer in her late 30s who is appointed visiting professor for the 2017-18 academic year; Millie Cousins is a student living and working as a resident assistant on a campus dorm, supporting the other young people; Kennedy Washburn is a new student on Millie’s dorm.
