Malibu Rising

“And now they were just biding their time, trying to create the perfect moment in which to tell Jay the half-truth. A half-truth between half brothers, though Jay and Hud never thought of themselves as half brothers at all.” 

Though Hud is only related to his siblings on his father’s side, Hud and Jay are dependent on the other as full brothers would be. Despite the temporary conflict over Hud’s relationship with Ashley, the brothers reconcile, especially after Jay defends Hud to Mick because of their shared experience of having been abandoned by him. Ultimately, their connection as brothers grows stronger as they commit to helping Kit’s surfing career.

“As she floated there, the wind chilling her wet skin, the sun crisping her bare shoulders, with her legs dangling in the water, Nina was already getting a small slice of the peace she’d come out here for.” 

The ocean is a balm for Nina. Nina surfs to forget the world, constantly returning to the water to find peace amidst the chaos of her life, so it makes sense that she will eventually leave Malibu to find such peace full-time, rather than continuing to juggle it with other commitments.

“The two of them were forever tied to each other, twisting and turning both in unison and in opposition. A double helix. Each necessary to the other’s survival.” 

June often passed Hud and Jay off as twins when they were younger, not wanting to explain that Hud was Mick’s son by another woman. As adults, they became work partners as well: Hud photographed Jay surfing for magazine covers , bringing Jay fame and Hud acclaim—an emotional and professional interdependence Hud worries about shattering by revealing that he is in a relationship with Jay’s ex-girlfriend Ashley.

“I will be more than just this, June thought to herself. I am more than just a woman he left.” 

June struggles to cope from the moment that Mick leaves her the first time, drinking more and more, eventually to the point where her children notice. Incapable of moving on from Mick, she tries and fails to rally herself to become more independent and less passively accepting of his actions. 

“They were good at this, they had experience. This was how they began the process of forgetting the people who turned their backs.” 

The Riva children survived, despite all of the challenges that were thrown their way. While Nina took on most of the responsibility as the eldest, they were a team that loved one another. Though the narration asks whether this will change, especially with Jay and Hud’s secrets, they emerge from the day together, taking care of one another in the aftermath of their father’s appearance and Jay and Hud’s fight.

“It would be the last time they all surfed together. Even though Jay did not know what would happen over the course of the evening—did not know just what awaited them all—he did know that.” 

The word "last" foreshadows Jay’s announcement of his heart condition and Nina’s departure. Jay already knows about his condition, which is likely why he suggests that they all surf together, but Nina doesn’t yet know that she’ll be departing Malibu the next day. 

“Nina was in it with all her heart now, as only those who have been hurt and learned to trust again truly can be. It is as if once your heart has been broken you learn of the deepest reserves it carries. And she had given up her reserves as well this time.” 

Nina is the only Riva child to really remember when Mick left June and then returned. When Mick comes back after several failed marriages, Nina is skeptical, but grows to accept him after her parents remarry. However, when he leaves again, Nina is hit the hardest, having to pick up the pieces after June becomes a shadow of the woman she once was. This very much informs how Nina behaves toward Mick as an adult, as well as the fears she has about being like her mother after Brandon leaves.

“Kit knew that you can only bogart a wave from someone you are confident will not beat the ever-living shit out of you. Because waves that beautiful are rare. That is the thing about the water, it is not yours to control. You are at the mercy of nature. That’s what makes surfing feel like more than sport: It requires destiny to be on your side, the ocean must favor you.” 

Surfing gives the Riva children an escape from their troubles. In many ways, it feels like the only thing that “favor[s]” them, given their difficult childhoods. Surfing highlights their closeness, with Kit knowing that she can steal Jay’s wave without consequences. She also wants Jay to recognize that she is also a talented surfer, something he finally understands at the end of the novel.

“And so, to his children, he was both inescapable and never there.” 

Fame and family is a pervasive theme in this novel. As Mick’s children try to make a life for themselves without his physical presence, they are constantly reminded of their father through media that focuses on his celebrity. This fact adds to the pain of having been abandoned by him; there is no place to hide.

“Our parents live inside us, whether they stick around or not, Hud thought. They express themselves through us in the way we hold a pen or shrug our shoulders, in the way we raise our eyebrow. Our heritage lingers in our blood. The idea of it scared the shit out of him.” 

The Riva children feel the effects of their parents’ choices. Hud, not knowing that he will soon have a child and will have to make a decision whether or not he will be in its life, ponders what it means to be a parent and what of his parents passed down to him. Like the rest of his family, he is scared to be like Mick.

“The moment Nina fully understood that her mother was dead was the moment she understood there was no one left in the world to count on, to lean, to trust, to believe in.” 

As June sank into alcoholism, Nina had to take over many parental duties. But, after June’s accidental drowning, the still teenaged Nina is officially on her own to take care of her younger siblings. This realization ripples throughout her life, until at the end of the novel her siblings remind her that they are now adults and can be there for Nina to depend on.

“She knew it was up to her to say what had to be said. To do what had to be done. When there is only you, you do not get to choose which jobs you want, you do not get to decide you are incapable of anything. There is no room for distaste or weakness. You must do it all. All of the ugliness, the sadness, the things most people can’t stand to even think about, all must live inside you. You must be capable of everything.” 

From this moment on, Nina refuses to fail at caring for her siblings. She runs Riva’s Seafood and pursues modeling, dropping out of school, so that Jay, Hud, and Kit can have a good life. Until they send her to Portugal, she refuses to give up on this mentality, even though they are all adults now.

“Nina had been so worried about making sure Kit was safe and protected, making sure Kit never felt like an orphan, that she’d babied her. Nina knew that. She was trying to stop. It just…wasn’t that easy. To let go.

But Kit was an adult now. There wasn’t much left for Nina to do. In fact, make the only true parenting left was to make sure Kit understood this very thing: how to be whatever type of woman she wanted.” 

Nina is only 25 when the novel begins, and yet she has been a parent for almost ten years. She still feels responsible for who her siblings are and who they will become. Since Kit is the youngest, Nina feels most responsible for her. By the end of the evening, she will have to let go, and Kit will push her to do so.

“Maybe our parents’ lives are imprinted within us, maybe the only fate there is the temptation of reliving their mistakes. Maybe, try as we might, we will never be able to outrun the blood that runs through our veins.” 

Nina feels that she has repeated June’s life in a variety of ways, from caring for her siblings, to running the restaurant, and to falling in love with a man that leaves her. By the end of the novel, she is finally able to break this cycle, telling Brandon that it’s over, allowing her siblings to sell the restaurant, and leaving alone for Portugal.

“They will not know what the future holds or if their paths will ever cross again. But they will feel that—for one night at least—someone has seen them as they have always wanted to be seen. And that will be enough.” 

The party provides fertile ground for a variety of experiences for its guests: here, for Caroline, a waitress and aspiring actress, and Bobby Housman, a film writer. Bobby hopes to get out of his shell and Caroline loves the attention he offers her. The novel shows brief glimpses of guests’ lives to demonstrate the community that has formed around the Rivas, the shallow excesses of fame, and personal and intimate insights into characters.

“I suspect you have not lived a single day for yourself.” 

Nina’s friend Tarine warns her that Brandon’s return is an example of Nina’s “problem” (232): Nina has never made her own happiness a priority, having pushed it to the bottom of her list when June died. Soon, however, Nina will be ready to start her life over and on her own.

“Nina, her entire life had been programmed to accept. Accept that your father left. Accept that your mother is gone. Accept that you must take care of your siblings. Accept that he world wants to lust after you. Accept accept accept. For so long, Nina had believed it was her greatest strength—that she could endure, that she would accept it all and keep going. It was so foreign to her, the idea of declaring that something was unacceptable.” 

When Carrie Soto arrives and yells at Brandon for leaving her, Nina feels jealous that she can’t have similarly strong reactions when “something was unacceptable” (272). Inspired, Nina puts down the burdens mother and father left for her to carry, rejects Brandon, and leaves Malibu.

“There was finally enough air within her for a fire to ignite.” 

As Nina sends Brandon away and tells him to keep his house, she lets go of the life he imagined for her to live her own. The confrontation with Carrie was an instigator, calling up the fire motif that lies under the whole novel, ultimately culminating in the destruction of the house and its burdens.

“She didn’t have to do any of this. The victimization, the acceptance of bullshit, the leaving your heart in the hands of an asshole yet again. She could decide not to.

Nina smiled. She had to sit with that one for a moment. It was almost too good to be true.” 

Because her whole life has been focused elsewhere, Nina has never been able to choose happiness for herself. She has just rolled with each punch, not quite believing that her life was for her to live. Nina’s choices from this point on reflect her learning from June’s mistakes, but it has been a hard road to shake off behaviors she learned from her mother, from staying with a man who cheated on her to putting their children first, no matter what.

“And then she leaned over, and she kissed Ricky on the cheekbone. It was the first time it had kissed someone with all her heart.”

Kit spends much of the novel growing into herself. She has lived in the shadow of Nina the model and Jay the professional surfer, and while she knows both love her, but now she tries to forge her own path. After allowing Nina to help with her outfit, Kit comes out to herself and to Ricky, admitting that she is interested in women. When he accepts her without question, she finds a lifelong friend with whom she can be honest and be herself.

“Casey had never experienced that: the use of ‘Dad’ as opposed to ‘my dad.’ There had been only herself growing up, no one to compare notes with, share parents with. And then here Nina was, sharing the word with her.” 

Casey yearns for family after having lost hers; she wanders into one that has so much history. Nina is willing to let her join this family because of June’s example in welcoming Hud without reservation. This decision to love Casey is repeated later with all of the siblings making room for her.

“‘I don’t know,’ he said, finally. He watched Casey’s eyes close and her chest fall as she understood that she would find no answer tonight. ‘I’m sorry, Casey. I know that’s probably not what you wanted to hear. But the truth is that I just don’t know.’

It broke them all a tiny bit—Nina, Jay, Hud, Kit, and Casey. There was no end to the ways he could disappoint.” 

Although Mick tries to reassure himself about how well his children have done, they constantly feel the effects of his absence from their lives and the presence of his fame. Nina, Jay, Hud, and Kit all know that he let down their mother not once, but many times, and his abandonment of them extended beyond June’s death. Now, unable to remember whether he slept with Monica Ridgemore, he lets them down even further because it’s clear that he is still focused only on himself.

“You have no idea what it takes to stand by anyone. You certainly don’t know what it takes to stand by a child. Mom did that. And when Mom couldn’t. I tried to finish the job. No, scratch that. I didn’t try to finish the job. I did finish the job. Because look at them. They are all talented and smart and good—and, sure, we’re not perfect. But we have integrity. We know something about loyalty. We are there for each other.”

Nina tells Mick that she had no choice but to be there for family. Unlike Mick, who thinks his vacillations about whether he could or couldn’t be a father excuse his absence from his children’s lives, Nina knows that family loyalty means simply doing what must be done. Now, she will do what June hoped to do but couldn’t: She will get rid of her husband, house, and restaurant, and go to Portugal. She is different than her mother, but her choices honor what June wanted for herself too.