TOP OF THE PYRAMID: MEGAN ABBOTT'S EL DORADO DRIVE

Megan Abbott uses noir to examine the interactions of women and society. The life and death scenarios and extreme mood and style creates focus on the circumstances the world often puts on her female characters. Her latest, El Dorado Drive could be considered her feminist Marxist use of the genre.

Abbott seeks the affluent Grosse Pointe suburb of Detroit during the Recession of 08', where the lives of wives and mothers are disrupted. Three of those women are the Bishop Sisters. The eldest Debra drowns under medical bills due to her husband's cancer. The youngest Pam's husband has left the scene after being sued for business fraud, stealing from his own children's fund. Middle child Heather, the central protagonist, returns to stay with Debra deep in a mysterious debt.

When Debra picks Harper up, she's driving a new car. She clues her sister in on a way Pam and her are getting above their financial woes. She helps Harper scrape up the five thousand to to buy in to their "women's support club". Harper becomes inducted into The Wheel, a variation on a pyramid scheme that repays her "gift" five-fold when she recruits five other members. Harper "works" The wheel , initially to get out of her debt , but gets obsessed like many of the women. Things come crashing when Debrah's ex comes back into the picture and murder occurs.

Abbott depicts the women with deft detail. Each member of the group is distinct, yet they collectively give The Wheel its own personality as an antagonist. While there is a keeping-up-appearances vanity to many of the ladies, Abbott shows a deeper drive, conveys an attitude of survival as well. Circumstances Without warning, societal circumstances have dropped these women to where they now have to be the breadwinners in the family.

Abbott explores how money effects us personally and collectively. The Wheel becomes like a drug, first to get ahead and buy euphoria through financial independence, then depend on it just to stay level. The book conveys this with a perfect tone with no hyperbole.

Even though El Dorado Drive roughly takes place fifteen years earlier, it mirrors our times with little distortion. Either with recession or inflation, money influences are lives with the lack of it a threat. Abbott argues may not buy happiness but we depend on it, sometimes with dangerous results.