The Swells by Will Aitken

Published by House of Anansi Press on January 4, 2022

People of wealth and privilege are an easy target. They may be a deserving target, but it may also be difficult for a writer to poke fun at them without coming across as a bit envious. In an apparent attempt to be even-handed, The Swells takes a satirical look at class distinctions that satirizes everyone. The working class and the upper class are equally deserving of mockery. At least, that’s the message I took from The Swells.

Briony is a luxury journalist who writes for the rapidly downsizing magazine Euphoria. The magazine is going online and, in its new incarnation, Briony will be its managing editor and only writer, all as an independent contractor earning a pittance for her trouble. She will soon have no possibility of paying rent, but travel writing allows her to stay for free at luxury accommodations. There might have been a promising story in that concept, but Will Aitken doesn’t pursue it.

Briony takes a cruise on the Emerald Tranquility, a luxury liner that caters to the elite. The Swells starts as a sendup of the wealthy, going through a checklist of things to mock. Heteronormativity, check. Conspicuous consumption, check. Children who purport to reject the parents whose wealth they are spending, check. Tea ceremony, tango lessons, and other classes that wealthy people take until their ephemeral interests move elsewhere, check.

Eventually the ship is boarded by pirates and later experiences a mutiny that is incited by an older passenger named Mrs. Moore, a woman to whom Briony is inexplicably attracted. But Briony is also attracted to Teenah Tri (formerly Terrance Tri), an Asian born into wealth who professes to be rejecting the concept of inheritance. Teenah has a bigger thing for Kurd Fenstermacher, a famous starchitect who, as Teenah explains, “takes a bit of getting used to.” Other passengers who might take some getting used to include a Parisian named Gigot and a fellow named Praun Thalat whose followers call him Little Buddha.

Perhaps The Swells is meant to be a subversive commentary on class privilege or an acidic criticism of social movements. Perhaps it is merely meant to be funny. To a limited extent, it is all those things, although it tries so hard to blend pointed commentary with humor that it shoots over the top of each goal it targets.

Mrs. Moore delivers tiresome lectures about the oppression of the poor by the wealthy and the social forces that cause lower classes to believe themselves less worthy than the rich. Her lectures have some merit but they feel out of place in a comic novel.

Inhabitants of the Asian ports of call are depicted only as stereotypes, as are repressive government policies (“one son, limitless daughters”). Exploited Asian factory workers are the object of comedy (children use squirt guns to cool the backs of garment workers) that makes exploitation seem rather fun. When the wealthy travelers encounter something unpleasant (the suffering mother of a kidnapped child, a collapsing building that crushes workers), they spend a few moments wondering if there is something they should do before they return to the ship, “eager to be unreflective once more.” This strikes me as more tragically truthful than satirical. In any event, Will Aitken seems to be indirectly mocking the problems of poor countries so he can mock the indifference of wealthy Americans.

Aitken crafts funny moments, although not often enough to make the story truly enjoyable. By taking a shotgun approach to mockery, targeting the upper class and the working class with equal vigor, the story never quite finds an identity. The piracy and mutiny are silly, but silliness was probably Aitken’s goal. The novel’s flaws and charms are roughly in equipoise, making it impossible to condemn or to recommend with enthusiasm.

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