The God of Rich People

The Ashfields believe God has blessed them. The evidence is hard to argue with.For fifty years their luck has arrived like weather - the storm that grounded a rival’s plane, the illness that cleared a path to a signature, the contract that saved a dying mill while the men who worked there stood in the rain. They kneel on kitchen floors. They keep books of their blessings, one word at a time. They thank God at the table, and they mean it.A hemisphere away, a boy named Emmanuel descends into a cobalt mine at dawn with his mother. In a factory in San Herón, a seamstress skips lunch to make quota - not knowing her face is already on a charity appeal in the American Midwest. And a delivery driver named Jonah carries wine up the long drive of an estate he has never been invited inside, doing the math on his ruined back.Every miracle has a cost chapter. This novel prints both.The God of Rich People alternates between the family that receives the blessings and the three workers who pay for them - two ledgers, one economy, no verdict. The rich chapters are written in the past tense, because that is what money buys: time to look back. The poor chapters are written in the present, because that is what work costs: a life that cannot afford to look away.No one is punished. No one is saved. The account stays open.For readers of Colson Whitehead, Arundhati Roy, Ling Ma - and the million who watched Parasite and couldn’t stop thinking about it.