Pretty Things

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussions of suicide and sexual harassment and abuse.

Nina declares, “[s]o I’m a grifter,” (42), and grifting dominates the story. It’s more than Nina’s, Lily’s, or Lachlan’s occupation: it is a theme that links Nina’s grifts to Vanessa’s career as an influencer, her family, and the wealthy in general. Janelle Brown uses the theme of grifting to suggest that people with money and power didn’t get them by acting honorably. Nina admits that she believed “in the great American myth, the Puritan ethic of nose-to-the-grindstone-and-thou-shalt-prevail,” but she realized that, “for most people not born into privilege, the playing field is a steep incline, and you are at the bottom with boulders tied to your ankles” (42). Being “at the bottom with boulders tied to your ankles” also recalls the imagery of sinking in Lake Tahoe; the structure of the novel revolves around the idea of the lengths people have to go to in order to obtain wealth in America.

Nina’s targets reinforce the pervasive theme of grifting: Brown presents celebrated wealthy individuals as grifters, too. Nina robs the predatory son of a Russian oligarch who hangs out with the dictator Vladimir Putin, and she scams a movie producer with a history of sexual misconduct. She feels fine with conning the Liebling family because they, too, maintain wealth illicitly. Benny describes his great-great-grandpa as an “asshole” (96) because he would not pay the people who designed and built Stonehaven. William reinforces the illicit nature of their wealth and privilege. He tells Nina that she is “nobody. You are disposable” (123). In an unjust world, Brown establishes Nina as a Robin Hood figure in her grifting.

Grifting is hence tied to vengeance through the novel. Unlike Lachlan, Nina only cons the affluent. Nina advises the reader to “only steal from those who can afford it” (22). Brown ties grifting to vengeance—to right a wrong—in order to make Nina a viable protagonist. Nina keeps grifting linked to, in her view, justifiable punishment. Even if the rich people whom Nina grifts haven’t wronged her personally, her grifting is directed as an act of vengeance against a lopsided system. As Nina realizes that privilege hasn’t given Vanessa an ideal life, she stops seeing Vanessa as the spawn of illicit wealth. With no sense of legitimate vengeance, Nina can’t go forward with the grift.

Vanessa’s career as a social media influencer links to the theme of grifting. When she confronts Michael about his lies, he tells her that her “career has been all about spinning lies. […] You’re a huckster, darling. Like the rest of your kind” (491-92). Thus social media stardom is presented as a grift—another route to riches via illicit means. Yet profiting off social media ultimately becomes a form of vengeance for Vanessa, though this is presented ambivalently for the reader. As a mommy blogger, Vanessa makes money and pays the bill to address the history of wrongs in Stonehaven and give Benny, Nina, and Daisy a home and family.