The Rich People Have Gone Away by Regina Porter

 Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series June 14, 2025 

Porter, Regina: The Rich People Have Gone Away  

 

It’s during the COVID-19 pandemic. There's a white family, Darla and Theo and there’s two Black families, Ruby and her family, and Xavier and his family. The parallel family to Theo and Darla is Nadine, Curtis, and Xavier. One family has the resources to get out of the city and go up to Darla’s family home in the woods. The other family has a wife and mother in the hospital on a ventilator. The father and son are temporarily using a friend’s apartment so they can be closer to the hospital, even though the father never takes time off from his job as a prison counselor and they’re not allowed to see her anyway.  

 

Marian started us out, saying, “I thought that Nadine and her husband Curtis and Xavier could have been their own novel.” 

Meghan elaborated on that, saying, “I thought the parallels between the two families were super broad. It depicts one group of people who are privileged to go up the Hudson to the Catskills versus everyone else, especially people who are Black and brown who can’t escape and who are really being impacted by Covid.”  

Catskills New York 

Shelara went even further, adding, “After reading the acknowledgements it feels like she had two different short stories that she put together. The story was really about Darla and Theo. Ruby and Darla had been childhood friends, and I think that friendship conveys a lot of things about the story. But in terms of Nadine and Xavier, and Curtis, their story just didn’t fit, except that they stayed in the same building as Darlene and Theo during Covid. “ 

Meghan called our attention to: 

p. 281 Alfred (Theo’s dad) asked Ruby how she and Darla became friends. She answered, “’A middle school trip. We just hit it off.’ The truth was Ruby had accidentally locked herself in the porta-potty and panicked because she was terrified of confined spaces...Darla had come to use the porta-potty too and heard her screaming and freaking out. And it wasn’t a big deal except that it was a big deal because she was the new girl and she was the new girl at a fancy Manhattan school who came from Brooklyn, and even though she was not a scholarship kid, she was not yet one of them. And she heard herself pleading and crying, more afraid of what rumors might spread around or blown out of proportion because everything in middle school is out of proportion. ‘I won’t say anything,’ Darla had said. And she never did.” 

Ann said she found the book very confusing: “I kept thinking she’s bringing the new characters in for a reason, so I started going back to take notes. I think they did have some relevance to each other, but it was very confusing. There were so many stories told in such detail and my energy started to wane, because there was so much detail and I wondered will this thread keep going or is this just one particular story?  One thing I did feel was that it was so complex until in some ways it was more realistic. So, there is a depth, an intelligence about it that really impressed me too. I just wish that it had been a little more organized so that I would have known what to memorize.” 

Regina Porter, author 

Barb added, “My initial deep frustration and confusion switched to fascination with the web she had woven. It’s an amazingly crafted story.” 

Robin said, “I didn’t find it as confusing as a lot of people are saying. I was kind of drawn in quickly. I read the whole thing last week. I thought it was fascinating, I mean I didn’t love every character of course because there were so many horrific characters. I thought the ending was just fascinating. I loved Xavier and that whole family.” 

Marian offered, “I think Xavier, Nadine, and Curtis, to me were the moral center. Xavier could see so clearly that all his father did was go to work instead of dealing with Nadine’s sickness. I kind of liked Xavier’s exchanges with his teacher about A Raisin in the Sun. Finally, he admits to himself that the reason he was contrary about it for class is because he wished he could have discussed it with his parents at the dinner table. I thought he was really written true, even to the point of a teenage boy wearing the same shirt every day.” 

Shelara explained that “He wore that shirt because it was part of the last conversation he had with his mother. There was the mental torture of having his mom in the hospital, and he couldn’t even see her.” 

Kay remarked, “I’m sure that people who read this book were able to connect with their own experience with COVID-19. There were people in the hospital whose family members could only see them through the hospital window.” 

Neighborhood in Brooklyn 

Robin pointed out that, “There were so many different perspectives. For example, Theo’s father was angry because Ruby and Katsumi got a loan from the government to keep their restaurant afloat. The author presented all of these different views. She had people from all these different perspectives. She showed us different classes. There were times that her writing style would change, and it would be more of a stream of consciousness.” 

Cruz told us that she liked the fact that it took place in New York City. 

Kay said there’s one page here where the whole page is a dialogue, and it’s all one sentence.  

Robin told us, “It took me a long time to figure out why Ruby had such a hard time. I finally figured out that it was her uncle Freddy’s death that made her so depressed.” 

Shelara admitted that Ruby’s addiction wasn’t fully defined. “I struggled with this. The author didn’t give us the ‘how’ of Ruby turning to addiction, only that Ruby described herself as a recovering addict. “ 

Meghan tried to tie Ruby’s addiction to all the time she spent at Darla’s house, saying, “There’s a lot of reference to Maureen’s secret stash of drugs in the kitchen cannister, which Ruby and Darla got into when they wanted to, while they were in high school.  I wonder if this was the gateway to Ruby’s addiction.” 

Barb couldn't ‘t seems to get past Theo’s habits “One of the many mysteries to me about this book was Theo. It’s not a flattering portrait of a complicated man who is the protagonist.” 

Shelara replied, “I don’t think that there is a protagonist in this book, that’s one of the things that is kind of weird about the book, and I don’t know how I feel about it because there are main characters, but I don’t think any are the protagonists. “ 

Marian seemed to lean toward Theo being the protagonist: “I think that the majority of the point of view is from Theo. Theo doing bad things and blaming it on the thirty percent of his African American/ Black heritage is the same as Darla doing bad things and saying her name is Ruby Black. Blackness served as the cover story for bad behavior.” 

Shelara pointed out that, “The original Theo (the enslaved African American) had run away and ended up owning land. This land is what provided the foundation for the present Theo and his family (who present as white) to have wealth.” 

Robin shared, “In some ways the book revolved around Darla, but you didn’t see her all the time. She certainly wasn’t made out to be a very positive person either. She had all sorts of issues she didn’t deal with. She was very privileged and didn’t think about anyone else. I don’t even know how she married Theo.” 

Shelara added, “That was one of things I didn’t get, how Darla and Theo winded up getting married. One of the first things he said was ‘I don’t do permanent.’” 

Robin chimed in, “Theo was a little bit like one of those charismatic sociopaths. Evidently, he was very good-looking. He must have had some charisma. Simon kept going back to him.” 

Shelara went further, saying, “People are attracted to Theo and it’s mostly about their own brokenness. Remember, the second time Simon went back to Theo, he called his old therapist. Theo is attractive, rich, and very cold. So, people who are emotionally distant are attracted to this. None of this showed a loving relationship between Theo and Darla. He was annoyed with her, annoyed with the pregnancy, he wanted to be free to go sex people up in doorways.” 

Maria was exasperated with Theo, saying, “The book starts with Theo screwing people in doorways. What kind of person is this?”