The Rich People Have Gone Away: A Novel

Brooklyn, 2020. Theo Harper and his pregnant wife, Darla, head upstate to their summer cottage to wait out the lockdown. Not everyone in their upscale Park Slope condo building has their privilege: not Xavier, the teenager in the Cardi B t-shirt, nor Darla’s best friend Ruby and her partner Katsumi, who stay behind to save their Michelin-starred restaurant. During an upstate hike on the aptly named Devil’s Path, Theo divulges a long-held secret—and when Darla disappears after the ensuing argument, he finds himself the prime suspect. As Darla and Theo's families and friends come together to search for her, with Ruby and Katsumi stepping in to broker the peace, past and present collide with startling consequences. For many brought back into the fold by Darla's disappearance—even those glimpsed fleetingly in the building lobby—it is a chance to renew connections or to review distances: what brings them together, and what sets them apart. Set against the pulse of an ever-changing city, connects the lives of ordinary New Yorkers to tell a powerful story of hope, love, and inequity in our times—while reminding us that no one leaves the past behind completely.