What a Way to Go by Bella Mackie review – Succession-style satire
It’s important to maintain a balanced diet in your reading, I find: plenty of roughage along with the ultra-processed books, that MFA American fiction so smoothed out it goes down like baby food. One way to ensure you get everything you need is to follow kitchen rules – salt, sweet, sour and bitter (plus I always throw in a classic, for umami’s sake). This year, All Fours by Miranda July is quite exceptionally salty; the Matthew Perry autobiography bitter; You Are Here by David Nicholls extremely sweet.
Few can compete with Bella Mackie when it comes to sour, and that is in no way an insult. Her spiky debut bestseller How to Kill Your Family proved a useful counterweight to the more saccharine end of the market, as well as being a post-pandemic chaser for those who had spent a little too much time in lockdown with their nearest and dearest.
What a Way to Go is similarly unconcerned with relatable characters. A vile multimillionaire, Anthony Wistern, dies in mysterious circumstances at his lavish 60th birthday party somewhere not a million miles from Chipping Norton. He is shunted to a dull afterlife and made to watch what happens next, along with the reader. It’s like an even more amoral Lovely Bones.
In true Succession style, Anthony has four children: Jemima, the scheming eldest; Freddy, the uninterested son; Paris-based Lyra; and Clara, the cheekiest and youngest. Ruling the roost is surviving first wife, the icy Olivia, who specialises in jewellery and snubbing.
What a Way to Go is rotters through and through; there isn’t a single decent person in it, and that’s kind of the point
The Succession shape is a little too neat (although the point about four being exactly the right number to show off that you can afford lots of private school fees is funny). There’s even a would-be Wambsgans, in the shape of Jemima’s sycophantic husband, Will. And, of course, a true crime wannabe podcaster, as is de rigueur these days.
The novel is undeniably funny, with many class-bound barbs that reminded me of Jilly Cooper: Anthony is nicknamed “Goldicocks”, a Rupert Campbell-Blackism if ever I heard one. Mackie’s gimlet eye also notices “the second wives and girlfriends” club at the funeral, “many of whom were actually crying, presumably mourning an opportunity lost”. One character is “one more facelift away from looking like a Renaissance baby”.
But Cooper always counterbalances her books with characters of great sweetness; for every Tony Baddingham, there’s a Taggie. What a Way to Go is rotters through and through; there isn’t a single decent person in it, and that’s kind of the point. By default, the reader ends up Team Anthony, the evil swindling father, who at least made some kind of effort to enjoy his life. It’s worth comparing the novel to Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new one, Long Island Compromise, which is also hilarious and about terrible rich people, but treats them as fully rounded deplorable human beings, not just joke machines.
One might also wish for a slightly broader scope: two pivotal scenes take place in the exact same restaurant, whereas part of the nasty fun in books like these lies in getting to luxuriate in the hotel suites and yachts, and reassure yourself that everyone there is in fact utterly miserable. Olivia is described constantly as an impeccable party-thrower: Mackie could have gone slightly more overboard on fancy parties, funerals and events for those of us not invited to so many that they start to seem dull.
That said, the gushing Tatler-style interview with the Cara Delevingne-style wild child is enormous fun, and the plot dances along, some twists highly guessable and some cleverly snuck in. It’s an excellently tart addition to your reading buffet.
• What a Way to Go by Bella Mackie is published by Borough (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
