The girl next door

Lee Conell’s debut novel is a gripping tale of class and privilege

“The Party Upstairs” focuses on the tenants of one building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side

The Party Upstairs. By Lee Conell. Penguin; 320 pages; $26.

BEFORE THE pandemic pushed millennials to seek shelter with their parents, student debt, wage stagnation and unaffordable housing had already driven many in the “boomerang” generation home. For Ruby, one of the main characters in Lee Conell’s debut novel, being part of that trend is humiliating. Having graduated from college after the financial crisis of 2008, Ruby tells her mother and father: “It turns out you birthed a living, breathing think-piece. The failure to launch millennial blah-dee-blah.”

“The Party Upstairs” takes place over the course of a single day, not long after Ruby’s return to the basement apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side where she grew up. Her mother Debra is a librarian; Martin, her father, is the building superintendent and the novel’s other focus. In alternating chapters, father and daughter reckon with their past and present interactions with the building’s wealthy tenants.

Martin has recently taken up meditating and bird-watching in an attempt to lower his blood pressure and anxiety. Being a super means accommodating the tenants (and their complaints) while scheduling maintenance work. The tasks haven’t changed much in Martin’s 25 years on the job, but the building has, and the fancier it has become, the wider the gap between him and the residents. “And every year,” he observes, “the tenants behaved worse, it seemed.” Ever since Martin found Lily, the last occupant of a rent-controlled apartment, dead on her toilet, his patience for his spoiled neighbours has worn thin.

For her part, Ruby grew up between her father’s world and theirs. As a child, she spent many hours playing with Caroline, who lived in the penthouse and had more expensive toys and a stranger imagination for games; one involved role-playing “Holocaust-orphans-sisters-survivors”.

Martin worries that his daughter’s education has alienated her from him. Yet over the course of this page-turning story, which culminates in the party of the title, Ruby realises that Caroline and her trust-fund cronies will never understand what her life is like.

This article appeared in the Books & arts section of the print edition under the headline "The girl next door"