The American author Taylor Jenkins Reid had huge success with her previous novel Daisy Jones & the Six (2019). This atmospheric, thrilling tale about the music and counterculture scene of the 1970s was a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. It was subsequently bought by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine company and is due for release on Amazon Prime later this year.
In Jenkins Reid’s new novel, the era has changed but the formula remains the same – an omniscient narrator acts as a camera that pans the lives of the bold and the beautiful in 1950s and 1980s California respectively. As with the author’s previous books, familial and romantic relationships are the focus, sprinkled with the stardust of celebrity, money and, in this instance, the emerging surf culture of the time.
Structurally, Malibu Rising is tight and propulsive. It is set over two timelines,
an hour-by-hour breakdown of surfer model Nina Riva's end-of-summer party
in 1983 Malibu, interspersed with sections from the 1950s that show the troubled relationship of Nina's parents, June and Mick. Nina's siblings – surfer Jay, photographer Hud, youngest sister Kit – also feature prominently as the family gears up for the party.
Each sibling has their own storyline, subplots that have a gossipy and compelling, if slightly obvious feel. Jay is in love with a woman who may not want him. Hud has fallen for his brother’s ex. Nina is reeling from her husband Brandon’s infidelity. Kit is struggling to find her identity.
Their parents’ story is equally engrossing, in a Netflix bingeworthy kind of way. Mick Riva is a celebrated singer, one of the most famous faces on the planet. He abandons small-town girl June multiple times, forcing her to raise the children on her own, a familiar trope in Jenkins Reid’s novels.
The author lives in Los Angeles with her husband, their daughter, and their dog Daisy Jones & The Six. Her other novels include The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Forever, Interrupted. Contemporary touchstones for this new book include Elizabeth Day’s The Party, and for its way with atmosphere and setting of American cultures past, Emma Cline’s The Girls, though the latter is more literary in style.
Malibu Rising is finely crafted commercial fiction, escapism in high definition, a quintessential beach read. From the climate – “It was not yet hot that morning; the breeze that stalks all seaside towns was running offshore” – to the surrounding landscape of the Pacific Coast Highway, mountains to the right, clear blue ocean to the left, the book has an extra poignancy in these confined times.
As she has proven in the past, the author is skilled at capturing worlds that have, somehow, both a nostalgic feel and a promise of a better, more exciting future. Her handling of surf culture is particularly deft, from a few well-chosen lines of dialogue (“‘The tubes right now are classic.’ ‘For sure, for sure,’ Jay said”) to the details of the sport (“[Nina was] having a hard time finding the kind of long, slow right-handers she was looking for”).
The buzz of the night ahead is seamlessly manufactured: “With each passing year, the party seemed to attract more and more recognizable people. Actors, pop stars, models, writers, directors, even a few Olympians.”
While this aura of exclusivity gives momentum, there is an unreal feeling to the lives of the side characters. Everyone is beautiful, rich, talented. Nina’s rat husband is a superstar tennis player who wins all the major tournaments in the same year. Nina is that old cliche of drop-dead gorgeous and completely selfless. Her biggest “flaw” is not caring enough about herself. Kit, while not as beautiful as her older sister, is still really beautiful. Jay is the best pro surfer on the scene. Hud is an award-winning photographer.
Cumulatively, this smacks of fantasy. One longs for an average photographer, a good surfer, maybe a few spots on the beautiful faces.
Elsewhere there is a tendency towards sentimentality in the writing. The sepia-toned atmosphere, which works so well for the backdrop, also shows up in the characters. The problems are real and weighty, the reactions and resolutions less so.
These issues will not stop Malibu Rising from being a success. For the party itself, the camera goes wider, giving us random snapshots of the hedonism – threesomes, guns and free cocaine among other delights. Ultimately, though, the book’s finest moments are in the smaller scenes with family members, the insights that Jenkins Reid delivers so nonchalantly and with great finesse: “Our family histories are simply stories. They are myths we create about the people who came before us, in order to make sense of ourselves.”
If Nina Riva’s party is the hottest ticket of the summer, then Malibu Rising is a front-row seat at the main event.
