9 Novels to Read if You Loved “Saltburn”

Screenshot from the movie “Saltburn” In Saltburn , the backdrops are as mesmerizing and as essential to the plot as the delicate portrayal of the central relationship between Oliver and Felix. The settings are both tight and enclosed, the campus and the country house. These are my favorite settings for novels—discrete locations with groups defined by their relationship to the space: Benefactor, son, heir, student, guest, imposter. In Saltburn , Oliver’s relationship to the house and to the inhabitants keeps shifting as he stays longer. Saltburn is overtly in conversation with amazing books that feature similarly shifting relationships and refined settings, including Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Ian McEwan’s Atonement , Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. The referential nods in the movie are subtle or satisfying—the dinner table scene, the fountains, the teddy bear in the long gallery with “dead rellies.” But these books below offer a reading experience similar to watching Saltburn : brief glimpses into an obsessive relationship, lush scenes of rich people behaving terribly, and stress as the claustrophobic tension increases over time . These novels explore lengths outsiders will go to survive in worlds of wealth and excess, capture intense and immediate connections forged in desire, and tease out precarious power dynamics that threaten ruin with one misstep, one unfortunate shift. Alex is staying with the much older Simon at his summer house for weeks before she makes a mistake that lands her a trip to the train station and a one-way ticket back to New York City, where she’s facing eviction. She is determined to stay until Simon’s Labor Day party, where Alex is convinced they will reconcile, and somehow she does. Alex passes as a member of a group of friends renting a house, slips into a country club, and more to grift her way through the wealthy Long Island community. This grift, however, is trying, and makes for propulsive reading. As college students, Stella and Violet’s different backgrounds were easier to ignore. Violet received a scholarship; Stella’s family name and wealth helped secure her spot, as they would anywhere. But after graduation, […]

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