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Malcolm Mejin, The Diary of a Rich Kid: Lost in Space, Penguin Random House SEA, 2023. 208 pgs.

Malcolm Mejin’s The Diary of a Rich Kid: Lost in Space is a young reader’s whimsical introduction to Elon Musk’s endeavours in space. This children’s book centres on the friendship of two boys, Robin Jin and Charlie Kong, during a joint family trip to space and the cosmic disasters that occur. Sprinkled with satire of the ultra-rich, The Diary of a Rich Kid allows readers to indulge in the carefree innocence of its child-protagonists, even as it drops hints of criticism directed at their own social and economic privilege.

The novel opens with a playful argument between Robin and Charlie after the latter has appropriated some of Robin’s designer clothes. While Charlie and Robin are both from wealthy families, the novel suggests that Robin’s family’s wealth goes back more generations than Charlie’s. Charlie’s parents, his mother Manda and stepfather Alibaba, are portrayed as part of a materialistic nouveau-riche. Manda is obsessed with Botox and fears ageing. Alibaba, an allusion to the Chinese e-commerce giant, obtained his wealth “mostly dealing with oil in Saudi Arabia” (p. 24). While Manda’s preoccupation with retaining youth and roleplaying as ingenue through romantic gestures with Alibaba are exaggerated, I still enjoyed the narrator’s jibes at them: most Asians can recall a vain auntie, mother or stepmother like Manda from family gatherings they attended while growing up.

In contrast, Robin characterises his own parents as classy idols. His father enters the story in a “designer-chequered shirt… [the] look of a model on the cover of a magazine” (p. 9). Such a descriptive tag may seem shallow coming from an adult but it has implications about the social context when it comes from a boy Robin’s age. Robin glorifies his father; and the way his environment has taught him to express this admiration is by emphasising his father’s displays of wealth. Nevertheless, Robin’s father shows himself to be as crass and demanding as Alibaba at difficult moments, when he scolds the spaceship crew.

The novel mocks the ultra-rich without undermining the reader’s enjoyment of Robin and Charlie’s boyish sincerity. Robin’s desire to visit the moon, “such a remote place, so far away from Earth” (p.7), is at once universal while also reflecting the extent of Robin’s economic comfort: he has the luxury of wishing for space because he has exhausted all pleasures on Earth. Instead of urging readers to judge Robin and Charlie’s extravagant lifestyles, the exploration of the logistics of everyday life and astronomical disasters invite us to take part in the characters’ farcical adventures as they go spacesuit shopping and play zero-gravity dodgeball. This book functions like a game of Monopoly, designed to help readers escape the mundanity of everyday worries and play at being billionaires.

Another part of Mejin’s gentle mockery of the wealthy elite is in Robin’s initial egocentrism. At the start of the narrative, Robin defines his friends’ worth according to their usefulness to him. For example, the nerdy and accomplished Ken serves to keep “me [(i.e., Robin)] grounded with his logical sense and simplicity” (p. 10). Robin’s pseudo-brilliant aphorisms emphasise the triteness of self-care cults which only wealthy people (usually women) have the luxury to engage in. One example is Robin responding to a compliment about his fashion sense with “the most important thing is to be yourself, and you will shine through no matter what” (p. 131). Such a statement would be grating and insensitive from an ultra-wealthy young man. But since Robin is a young boy, his ignorance highlights the upper-class’ disingenuous appeals to self-improvement, which dismisses the social advantage they begin life with. Robin is merely parroting those messages. The story redeems Robin when he shows compassion towards Charlie during one of the book’s key crises.

There are a few features that detract from the reading experience. The text-speak and excessive narration at times disrupts the narrative’s flow. The exaggeration of Manda’s obsession with Botox also becomes repetitive. Nevertheless, the novel’s sincere narration style and otherworldly thrill make Mejin’s novel an enjoyable read.

How to cite: An, Frances. “Play Pretend: Malcolm Mejin’s The Diary of a Rich Kid.“ Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 31 May 2023, chajournal.blog/2023/05/31/kid.

Frances An is a Vietnamese-Australian fiction and non-fiction writer based in Perth. She is interested in the literatures of Communism, moral self-perception, white-collar misconduct and Nhạc Vàng (Yellow/Gold Music). She has performed/published in the Sydney Review Of Books, Seizure Online, Cincinnati Review, Sydney Writers Festival, Star 82, among other venues. She received a Create NSW Early Career Writers Grant 2018, partial scholarship to attend the Disquiet Literary Program 2019, and 2020 Inner City Residency (Perth, Australia). She is completing a PhD in Psychology at the University Of Western Australia on motivations behind “curbstoning” (data falsification in market research). [All contributions by Frances An.]

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