Such a Fun Age (2019)

Such a Fun Age is the debut novel by American author Kiley Reid. It was published by G. P. Putnam's Sons on December 31, 2019. It tells the story of a young black woman in Philadelphia who is wrongly accused of kidnapping while babysitting a white child, and the events that follow the incident. The novel received favorable reviews and was longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize.

Plot

Alix Chamberlain is a wealthy influencer, blogger, and public speaker in her early thirties who has built a brand known as "LetHer Speak" around the practice of writing old-fashioned letters to businesses, often in exchange for free product samples and encouraging women to be assertive. Alix's family has moved from New York City to Philadelphia for her husband Peter's job as a television anchor, and her career is stalling as she raises two children and attempts to write her first book. Alix hires Emira Tucker, a 25-year-old African American college graduate, as a babysitter to care for her three-year-old daughter Briar. Alix also has an infant daughter named Catherine. Emira appreciates that Briar is a unique and rambunctious child but also notices Briar's antics irritate Alix and lead her to neglect Briar in favor of Catherine.

Alix and Peter's home is egged at night and a window is broken after Peter received backlash for making a racist remark on-air, though he insists the comment was thoughtless. Alix calls Emira, who is at a party with friends, to take Briar with her to a local, trendy supermarket while she and Peter speak with the police. At the store, Emira, her friend Zara, and Briar dance to Whitney Houston and are noticed by an older white woman. After Zara leaves, a security guard approaches Emira at the white woman's behest and questions why Emira is with Briar. Emira explains the situation but the guard refuses to believe she is a babysitter, and Emira is freed only once Peter shows up and corroborates her story. The incident is recorded by a white bystander, Kelley Copeland, who urges Emira to seek justice against the store. Emira is shaken but does not want attention; she has him email the video to her and delete it from his phone.

Alix is shocked by the incident and tries to treat Emira better, offering her extra pay and gifts, and becomes intent on developing a friendship with her, though Emira simply regards Alix as her employer. Meanwhile, Emira runs into Kelley again on the train, and the two start dating. For Thanksgiving, Alix invites Emira and her boyfriend to the Chamberlain home. Upon meeting, they realize that Alix (formerly Alex Murphy) and Kelley dated in high school and parted on bad terms. Later, Kelley tells Emira that she needs to quit her job because Alix is racist: in high school, she called the police to a party at her mansion home, indirectly causing a black student, Robbie, to lose his scholarship when he was arrested with drugs, and has a history of surrounding herself with black employees. Emira, feeling Kelley is being inconsiderate of her anxiety about her employment status and lack of professional career, refuses to quit.

Alix tells Emira that she should break up with Kelley because he fetishized black people in high school: he invited Robbie and the cool kids to the house to become friends with them and later broke up with Alix in favor of them. When Emira dismisses her advice, Alix gains access to Emira's email and leaks the video of the grocery store incident. To Emira's shock, it goes viral. Believing that Kelley leaked it, she breaks up with him. Alix comforts her and offers her a full-time job as Briar's nanny, which she accepts. Alix also arranges an interview with Emira and herself on local television.

Minutes before the interview, Emira learns that it was in fact Alix who leaked the video on social media. On air, Emira embarrasses Alix by quitting and using the same line that Kelley had used to break up with her in high school. When Alix confronts her, Emira urges Alix to be a better mother to Briar. Emira also has a heartfelt goodbye with Briar, who she's grown to love. After the interview airs, Kelley tries to contact Emira, but she does not respond. It is also revealed in a flashback that in high school Alix had left a number of notes inviting Kelley to her house, and that these notes had inadvertently ended up in Robbie's locker. Alix, upon realizing that Kelley never invited Robbie to her house as she believed, instead consciously alters her memory of the events and trains herself to believe that Kelley did invite Robbie to her house, thus leading to his arrest.

Years pass and Emira begins working as an administrative assistant. She sees Kelley with his black girlfriend and Mrs. Chamberlain with an older Briar and Catherine (where she notices that Alix seems to only be doting on Catherine) but does not approach any of them. Well into her thirties, Emira wonders what she learned from her time at the Chamberlain house and what kind of person Briar will grow up to become.

Themes

Such a Fun Age deals with themes of interracial relationships, privilege, millennial anxiety, and wealth.

Reid interrogates tropes of the white savior and unknowing racist as they play out in everyday life. Throughout the novel, the white characters assume they know what is best for the protagonist, without ever seeing anything from her perspective, and speak about her with a sense of ownership. The novel satirizes what has been described as "the white pursuit of wokeness", by having the two main white characters use their relationships with Emira as the battleground through which each intends to prove their racial virtue. Reid explained that she did not think of her characters as inherently bad, conversely, that they "were dying to help, but kind of going through mental gymnastics to ignore the broken systems that put people where they are to begin with."