"We Need to Talk: A Memoir about Wealth," by Jennifer Risher

Some readers of this blog may recall that I am academically and personally interested in matters of social class, and have studied and published about some aspects of class. So I was intrigued by Jennifer Risher’s “We Need to Talk: A Memoir about Wealth” (Xeno, 2020). Risher and her husband both worked for tech companies, and her husband’s success in particular made the couple very wealthy. They were not born to wealth, so although they were happy to be so financially secure, it took them a while to feel comfortable spending a lot of money. Just for one example, they -- especially the author -- initially didn’t feel right about spending the money to travel first class, so they chose Economy Plus as a compromise. By the end of the book, they have graduated to expensive private planes. The same hesitations occurred regarding designer clothes and other luxuries. But they gradually adjusted to spending freely. They also appreciated the freedom to leave their jobs when they wanted to do other things. The most interesting part of the book is the portrayal of the psychological aspects, the doubts, the worries of newly (very) affluent people. It may be, very understandably, hard for readers and others to sympathize with their situations, but from a sociological point of view, it is useful and interesting to understand more about the process of changing social and economic classes in this way, especially since there is an increasing category of such people made wealthy by the tech world (something very visible to those of us living in the San Francisco Bay Area). The writing of this memoir is only workmanlike. But the work the author has done to understand this identity of becoming wealthy is revealing, and I admire her (seeming, at least) candor. I also admit that although this author doesn’t make her life sound fabulously exciting, it is fun -- in a slightly voyeuristic way -- to read some of her stories about the lives of the wealthy.