Malibu Rising

By Taylor Jenkins Reid, Ballantine Books, 2021, 365 pages
Reviewed by Ted Streuli, June 28, 2021

Taylor Jenkins Reid has a knack for making readers feel intimate with a character they shouldn’t know.

In “Daisy Jones and the Six,” we got to know Daisy, who reminded us a little too much of Grace Slick and Janis Joplin, and that’s unusual; few novels make us feel as though we’re hanging out with rock stars, even fictional ones.

Reid also did that in “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,” putting the reader in the inner circle with a Hollywood recluse a la Greta Garbo or Gloria Swanson.

In her new novel, “Malibu Rising,” Reid pulls readers along again into Club Celeb with her heroine, Nina Riva, daughter of a Sinatra-level crooner and a do-for-others mother. Nina’s a reluctant but wildly successful model who graces the pages of surfing magazines and the cover of Sports Illustrated. Her siblings are no slouches: Jay a champion surfer, Hud a highly regarded photographer, and the youngest Riva, Kit, on the verge of becoming the new surfing icon.

Nina’s married to a tennis champion with 10 Grand Slam titles to his name so far and unhappily resides in a bland mansion on a cliff above a Malibu beach.

Readers know from the start that the Rivas’ annual party gets out of control and that something bad happens, but we get there via alternating chapters of Nina’s life now (set in 1983) and the saga of her late-’50s-early-’60s youth.

Nina is lovable, but I say that as the guy who falls in love 17 times per week, with the violinist at the symphony, the teacher at the elementary school, and every Disney princess ever, but especially Cinderella. Updike was no doubt thinking of me when he wrote about Sammy in “A&P.” Nina has flawless beauty, a flawless heart, a flawless house and she does everything flawlessly. I found myself waiting for the flaw, any flaw, any hint that she was human, but the closest Reid gets is having Nina stand up for herself a bit in the final chapters.

Mouthy, brash, younger sister Kit also sidestepped all the flaws. Come to think of it, almost every woman in the book is terrific. The exceptions are Nina’s saintly mother who finds a flaw in the liquor cabinet, and a tennis pro who’s an over-the-top homewrecking bitch.

The men, however — oy vey. Nina’s father can’t keep it in his pants. Neither can Nina’s husband. Brother Hud started sleeping with brother Jay’s girlfriend way too soon. Even the policeman summoned to break up the party is a lecherous coot. They are unrepentant, egocentric assholes, although Jay and Hud might be salvageable; they are, after all, closely related to Nina.

“What’s the female equivalent of a misogynist?” my wife, Betsey, once asked (and yes, I feared a semantic trap). “Is there even a word for that?”

I had to look it up, and there is: misandrist. I was glad I knew it ahead of time because it kept me from searching for it as I read “Malibu Rising.”

I am overstating the case a little. A more generous reviewer would write about that feeling of being on the inside of the celebrity circle that Reid conjures so well. She’d write about the fire metaphor and the cliff metaphor and the surfing metaphor and how the four siblings all grow into better people over the course of the story. She’d write about the lovely setting and talk about how the Rivas’ lives remind us of time passing, our own sense of familial obligation and how we define family. She’d write about people overcoming trauma and discovering who they really are.

But that’s all weak window dressing in “Malibu Rising.” These aren’t the flawed, unique characters we got to know in “Daisy Jones and The Six,” they’re speed-read characters so predictable you’d be comfortable betting your next 12 house payments if only someone in Vegas would offer a line.

For all the lovely quotes from this book about families of dolphins and Nina’s inner strength and the virtues of a simple life, the only quote you really need in advance is this one: She was a woman, after all. Living in a world created by men. And she had long known that assholes protect their own. They are faithful to no one but surprisingly protective of each other.

If the local chapter of Misandry United has a book club, this is going to be the hit of the summer. If you’re not a member, buy “Daisy Jones and The Six” instead. You’ll get Reid’s better half.