The Nepo Baby of Old New York

The butler brings the tea and vanishes; the groom holds the horse and vanishes. Roxane Gay notices the people this novel spends nothing on, then does the math on the man it spends everything on. Chapters thirteen through seventeen run on enforcement: a warm letter from May that is not quite what it seems, and the quiet threat that keeps a whole city in line. Then Newland bolts to Florida, where May hands him a way out that would cost him only honesty. Gay thinks that offer shows how much May sees, and how badly he has misjudged her. The title gives you her verdict in two modern words.