Since F Scott Fitzgerald first described the view from a West Egg mansion, the lives of the American 1% have been of keen interest to the rest of us; whether we love them, love to hate them or want to know where they buy their shoes. And these days, with Succession and The White Lotus streaming to record audiences, the power struggles, moral dilemmas, interior designers and dirty secrets of the obscenely wealthy are big business.
This, then, is the train to which Jenny Jackson’s entertaining debut novel Pineapple Street hitches its wagon. Her focus is on the Stockton family of Brooklyn, high net worth Wasp buccaneers of New York real estate. They consist of air-headed matriarch Tilda, obsessed with tennis and tablescapes; her husband, the amiable Chip, who quietly manages the empire; daughters Darley and Georgiana; and son Cord. Pampered, naive Georgiana works for a charity and Darley and Cord have both “married out”. Darley has renounced her trust fund because she refused a prenuptial agreement to wed tender-hearted nerdy Malcolm, aviation whiz and a second-generation immigrant of colour, while Cord, who works alongside his father, has just married Sasha, a graphic designer from a rough and ready blue-collar Rhode Island family.
