The Grand Scheme of Things

December 16, 2024
In this acerbic if uneven debut, Jay turns a fiercely critical eye on entrenched racism in the contemporary British theater scene. Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo, an immigrant from Botswana who goes by Eddie, has written a dystopian play about race and national identity inspired by the impending Brexit referendum. Though she was the most promising student in her creative writing program, established theater agents decline to represent her. She then has a fateful coffee shop encounter with Hugo Lawrence Smith, a disaffected white trust funder and recent law school graduate who once aspired to the stage, and the two conspire to submit Eddie’s play to Britain’s most prestigious playwrighting competition under Hugo’s name. Initially, their goal is to expose the industry’s hypocrisy, but both Eddie and Hugo grow increasingly entangled in the charade. The second-person narration, addressed in turn from Eddie and Hugo to the other, feels a bit like a writing exercise, and subplots involving Hugo’s half sister and Eddie’s mom are underdeveloped. But the novel’s premise is provocative, and the characters frequently offer insightful commentaries on authorship, identity, and cultural gatekeeping. Fans of R.F. Kuan’s Yellowface should take note.

January 1, 2025
The big reveal was supposed to happen on opening week. Playwright and recent drama school graduate Naledi Moruakgomo, an immigrant to England from Botswana who goes by Eddie, tried and failed to launch her dystopian play. She got in the door of an agency as "Edward Moore," only to be turned away. But when her play is put forward under a new title as the work of Hugo Lawrence Smith--a law school graduate Eddie met at a coffee shop, a white man with the world at his feet--doors suddenly open. The play wins an award and garners praise for the directorial debut of an Iranian-born actress. In this twisty novel, Eddie and Hugo discover that running a con can easily ensnare its masterminds. The story bounces between them as they describe the chain of events to each other, underlining the multifaceted narratives at work. As their relationships real and fictional develop and fall apart, Eddie and Hugo confront the cost of their deception. Identity, success, and who deserves consideration intertwine in Jay's unflinching debut.

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Starred review from February 1, 2025
A playwright and a toff join forces in an attempt to expose the bias of theater culture in this debut novel. Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo goes by "Eddie." A Black woman raised in London by her mother, an immigrant from Botswana, she explains, "As I sauntered into my teenage years, social standing and appearance became everything, and I had a name that was practically oral acrobatics...a name that received a predictable scroll of questions about the meaning. A suggestion that 'Eddie' might be easier." Her acquiescence to this suggestion in many ways sets the tone for the book. Eddie is fresh out of university and finishing her latest, best play when she meets Hugo Lawrence Smith, a wealthy white law student and professed theater lover. After rounds and rounds of rejection and a keen understanding of the inherent racism at work, Eddie asks Hugo to submit the play under his name. No surprise that it becomes a huge success. There are as many layers here as in a croissant and it's just as rich, but beware of enjoying it too much--Jay is always exposing new levels of rancidity in the world. Eddie's play is a dystopian fable about immigration and the "myth of meritocracy," but everyone takes it at face value that Hugo could have written it. Hugo himself seems like a surprisingly stand-up guy--doing exactly as Eddie says at every juncture, studying theater in order to represent her play well--but his streak of selfishness further jeopardizes their already complex and risky entanglement. And Eddie's awareness of the rigged system is matched only by her penchant for self-sabotage. Jay plays with romantic conventions, employs thriller-esque pacing, and seems to be having fun. Readers will, too. An assured and nimble satire.

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