The Other Half: Life and Death Among the Upper Class

 

 

THE OTHER HALF (2023)

By Charlotte Vassell

Anchor Books, 368 pages.

★★★★

 

 

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that the rich “are different from you and me.” British novelist Charlotte Vassell focuses on a group that’s not a literal other half–more like the top 1-5 percent. She opens big with a small sentence: “A girl is dying.”

 

The suspects in The Other Half are those turning 30 who met at Oxford and have cultivated the belief that they are superior to those beneath them. They wear bespoke shirts and discourse on the best place to buy suits and designer threads. Rupert Achilles de Courcy Beauchamp decides to mark his 30^th at a McDonald’s by throwing money at the staff, commandeering the second floor, making fun of the food, and trashing the place. Don’t imagine for a second the party invitees feel guilty about leaving a mess for wage earners to clean.

 

The Oxfordians are also arch–Clemence “Clemmie” O’Hara is called “Phlegm” behind her back–spend more on a lunch than some working-class families spend on groceries in a month, use designer drugs (MDMA), hold down “jobs” such as artist, influencer, and private equity manager, and have solicitors and contacts in high places to get them out of scrapes. But what if one of them is guilty of murder?

 

Vassell throws a lot of names at us early on, but the story eventually settles on a handful of the rich: Rupert, Clemmie, Alex(andros) Adonis, and Araminta “Minty” Gaunt. They are beautiful in style and looks, though perhaps the most lovely of all is the one who did not come from money, went to Oxford with loads of scholarship money, and needs to work for her keep. Helena “Nell” Waddington, is bookish, red-haired, and the object of desire of both Alex and Rupert. The latter is a problem as Rupert and Clemmie have dated and/or cohabited for ten years. Alex and Nell have come to see Rupert as a pompous, amoral jerk, but he’s also irresistible in many ways, not the least is that he's filthy rich and in line to inherit a title as soon as an elderly uncle has the decency to expire. Nell prefers Alex, but Rupert dangles a lot in front of a young woman of limited means and promises he’s about to dump Clemence who, to be fair, shows outward signs of being an airhead.

 

The real “other half” of the novel is represented by the law enforcement team seeking to crack a murder case that keeps leading them back into social circles well above their paygrades. Detective Inspector Caius Beauchamp has the same last name as Rupert, and is light-skinned enough to pass for white (or maybe Mediterranean), but was raised in a Jamaican fundamentalist Baptist family before becoming a cop and losing his religion (and probably his French girlfriend). He pronounces his surname “Bo’ champ;” Rupert snippily informs his last name is pronounced  “Beecham.”

 

Caius’ partners are Detective Sgt. Matt Cheung, who is half British and half Asian, and Detective Constable Amy Noakes, who finds her male partners’ assumptions partly sexist and partly hilarious. Caius and Matt are the book’s comic relief. Caius is on a self-improvement kick in which he reads weighty tomes, tortures himself with exercise, and tries to convince himself that a vegan diet is good for him. Matt is the devil on his shoulder tempting him with junk food, meat, pastries, and other such things. He also makes sure Caius doesn’t become a Gloomy Gus. The Caius/Matt pairing also serves to show how ethnicity matters if you’re not rich, but is pushed under the rug if you are.

 

You’ve heard the expression “to die for love.” The Other Half hinges on whether someone would kill for it. The book is filled with deplorable people–and I’ve not even gotten into imperious art historian Dr. Fay Bruce Osbald–but does snobbery and doing tone deaf things make someone a killer? Vassell keeps us guessing by moving back and forth between plebeian spaces–the police station, roadside pubs, small flats–and upper crust galleries, estates, clubs, and oh-so-fashionable Bloomsbury.  

 

The Other Half suffers a bit from having too many unlikable characters; not even Nell passes muster as someone for whom we should root. Vassell’s London doesn’t come off well either; it’s either “dirty” or indefensibly posh. But I will say that Vassell kept me off guard and that I did not predict what was coming.

 

Rob Weir