The Sandersons Fail Manhattan

Johnston (Campusland) channels Tom Wolfe in this clever satire of diversity initiatives in academia and business. William Sanderson is a junior executive at Bedrock Capital, a premier personal finance firm in New York City, where he’s angling for a promotion. He also hopes his teen daughter, Ginny, will follow in his footsteps to Yale. But both aspirations threaten to be derailed by performative DEI programs. Casper Stein, Bedrock’s founder and CEO, is eager for his firm to land a jackpot deal with California’s public pension system, but the company will only be considered if at least one of its board members identifies as LGBTQ+. Their HR head doesn’t know for sure about each board member’s sexuality, prompting William to embark on a quixotic and farcical quest to produce a gay board member. Meanwhile, Ginny’s prep school, Lenox Hill, embarks on a bizarre and unscrupulous scheme to earn favor from Yale by proving it’s more diverse and inclusive than other schools, leading administrators to bribe a trans student’s parents into transferring their child to Lenox. William’s and the school’s campaigns backfire spectacularly, especially after the latter provides fodder for a tabloid reporter. Johnston holds no cows sacred in this entertaining take on the roles privilege and virtue signaling play in the pursuit of ambition. Admirers of The Bonfire of the Vanities ought to take a look. (July)