Malibu Rising

Nina Riva wakes up in the coastal house her now absent husband Brandon picked out before leaving her for a fellow professional tennis player. Because Nina is a professional surfer, their breakup is in the tabloids; the article includes an image of Nina’s father Mick, a rock star. Nina notices that the waves are perfect for surfing, and plans to “let the ocean heal her like she always had” (14). She thinks about the party happening that evening and how many people will ask her about Brandon.

Nina’s brother Jay and sister Kit arrive. They’re concerned about Nina since Brandon left, but they know that she will be okay. Jay is at the peak of his surfing career, placing in the top three in two United States Surfing Championships, appearing in the media, and gaining sponsorships. Jay believes that he is a good surfer, but knows that his father’s fame contributes to his own celebrity. Jay and Kit head down to the beach to surf, arriving at the peak of the wave.

Their brother Hud is with Ashley, Jay’s ex-girlfriend. She is impressed by Hud’s skills as a photographer. Hud has made his career photographing Jay, including for the covers of surf magazines. Hud and Ashley have sex while Hud photographs her. Ashley doesn’t think she should go to the party that night, worried about Nina’s breakup and about coming in between Jay and Hud. Hud disagrees, insisting that Nina will be okay and that he will tell Jay about their relationship. Ashley and Hud started sleeping together while Ashley was still with Jay after confessing that she’d always wanted to be with him instead. Neither intend for Jay to find this out—instead, they will tell him a “half-truth between half brothers, though Jay and Hud never thought of themselves as half brothers at all” (26).

Nina surfs on the quiet beach. She has considered cancelling the party but decided not to because her siblings so look forward to it. The annual Riva party is the result of Nina’s and Brandon’s fame. Celebrities attend every year, often making headlines for whom they meet and what they do. Nina doesn’t believe everything tabloids print about the party, focusing instead on whether her family has fun.

The chapter flashes back to 1956 to tell the story of Nina’s parents, Mick and June Riva.

June is 17 years old, and Malibu isn’t much more than a fishing town. June’s parents own Pacific Fish, a small restaurant near the Pacific Coast Highway. June works there after school, with the understanding that she will one day inherit it.

One morning, she goes to the beach and meets Mick. The following Saturday, he takes her to an expensive restaurant. She confesses that she doesn’t want to run Pacific Fish, and Mick tells her that he’s a singer who’s trying to make it big in Hollywood. June believes he can make it despite never having heard him sing. When Mick asks her what she hopes to have in the future, she replies that she wants a family and a good husband with a house that has two sinks in the bathroom. They order dessert, both admitting they have a sweet tooth. As they leave, June suspects that Mick skipped out on the bill, but she ignores this. They drive to the beach and slow dance together on the sand. Mick sings to her, and June thinks she was right in saying he could become famous. Mick decides to fall in love with June, “if falling in love is a choice. He chose her” (42); For June, however, “it wasn’t a choice at all. For June it was a free fall” (42).

Nina’s agent has left her a message saying that there’s nothing to be done about photos from her last shoot and that he’ll see her at the party. Nina erases the message.

Nina looks in the mirror, feeling 40 even though she is only 25. She feels like a mother: Though she is “[c]hildless and yet, hadn’t she raised children?” (44). She also notices that she looks like her mother. It’s nearly time to meet her siblings at the restaurant. Nina is the only one who makes sure that it’s still running, doing it “not only for the people of Malibu but for her mother and her grandparents, who ran it before her. The weight of their sacrifices to keep it standing pushed her to do the same” (45).

The narration shifts back to Mick and June in 1956.

Mick and June go out every Saturday night, with Mick often bringing her sweets. One night, he brings her just a sugar cube and tells her that he loves her. When he slides his hand up her skirt, she stops him, saying that she wants to be his first—when they’re married.

Mick proposes on the Santa Monica Pier. June says yes, and he promises that she won’t ever have to work in Pacific Fish again and that their home will have two sinks. His life will be different from that of his parents. They have sex in the car, and June realizes that this is not Mick’s first time. June is quietly devastated, but thinks it’s too late: “she could never go back to who she was even a moment ago, now that she knew what he could do to her” (50).

The next day, Mick and June tell her parents that they are getting married. June’s father Theo gives his blessing on the condition that Mick and June take over the restaurant. Mick agrees, but tells the shocked June that he just told Theo what he wanted to hear. June’s mother Christina worries that Mick doesn’t know how to run a restaurant. When June retorts that she is destined something bigger, Christina explains that the restaurant is a way for her and Theo to build a good life and take care of people around them: Pacific Fish is part of the community. June apologizes.

Mick starts booking more shows, each bigger than the last. After meeting with someone from a record company, Mick comes home with a bigger ring for June. Soon, June is pregnant. They move up the wedding and get married on the beach. Mick sings a song he wrote for June called “Warm June.” Nina is born in 1958. Mick takes June and Nina to a new house he bought, which has a bathroom with two sinks.

Nina arrives at Riva’s Seafood. She greets Ramon, who has managed it since 1979. Many customers come to the restaurant now on the off chance that Nina will be there, which Nina finds stressful: She has “not quite figured out how best to handle the sense of ownership people felt over her” (60). Together, she and Ramon go over the books. Nina is concerned about what will happen when tourist season ends. She’s determined to ensure that Riva’s Seafood will go on.

Jay and Kit stop at home before meeting Nina at the restaurant. They still live together in their childhood house, while Hud lives in an Airstream. Neither Jay nor Hud is home often, usually traveling together to different surf competitions. Kit is about to start her junior year at Santa Monica College. She’s jealous of her siblings’ fame and longs to surf professionally. She has the talent, but worries that she isn’t as pretty as Nina.

Jay drops Kit off, drives to a restaurant called The Sandcastle, and orders a slice of cake from a waitress named Lara so that he can ask her to the party. Jay hasn’t been able to stop thinking about her since they met three weeks ago. That night, they had sex and he told her about his newly diagnosed dilated cardiomyopathy, a heart condition that means he should stop surfing competitively. Lara simply responded, “OK, so you’ll find something else to be” (69), and the simplicity of her answer made him feel like there was hope.

In the present, Lara says she says that she’ll come to the party. Jay forgets to take his cake.

The chapter flashes back to 1959.

Mick is on tour as June is about to give birth to Jay. June asked him to come home as soon as he heard she was in labor, but Mick doesn’t appear until after Jeremy “Jay” Michael Riva is born. June forgives him, grateful for the life he has given her. When Mick announces that “Warm June” will be the first song on his new album, June is happy that others will know that she is his wife, suspecting that Mick may be unfaithful when on the road.

On the way to the restaurant, Jay and Kit pick up Hud, who is worried about admitting that he has been sleeping with Ashley since Jay is his closest friend.

The narrative flashes back to December 1959.

The doorbell rings, and a young actress named Carol Hudson appears in June’s doorway with a baby boy. Carol tells June that the baby should be with his father, pushing him into June’s arms and leaving. The boy’s birth certificate reads Hudson Riva. At first, June is furious at Carol for the effect she has had on her marriage. However, as June comforts Hudson, she realizes that he needs someone to love him “[a]nd she could do that. That would be a very easy thing to do” (79). Her anger then shifts to Mick. She tries to have the locks changed, but the locksmith won’t do it without permission from “the master of the house” (80). Instead, she puts a chair beneath the knob, blocking Mick from entering. She explains through the door, that she is most upset because she had trusted him.

Mick wanted to be a good man. However, with his fame came women wanting to sleep with him. He said no at first, but eventually, he gave in and even started to pursue women actively. During their affair, Carol told him she was pregnant and disappeared. Mick apologizes to June, convincing her to take him back because he’s “Hudson’s father. If you want him, you have to take me too” (85). He promises never to cheat on her again. June convinces herself that he will be faithful and that they can tell the world Hud and Jay are twins.

Their life together improves, but June starts to drink vodka regularly and Mick soon begins cheating on her again. One night, he comes home drunk and tells June that he is leaving her for a woman named Veronica.

Nina makes “The Sandwich” for her siblings, a tradition she started: fried clams, shrimp, and cheese. Then, she flips through a magazine, coming across an article about Brandon and his new girlfriend, which brings back memories of June seeing pictures of other women with Mick.

Jay, Hud, and Kit arrive, nearly half an hour late. They reminisce about how different the party is from its humble beginnings, discuss who they think will attend, and complain about Brandon. As they laugh, it becomes clear that “[t]hey were good at this, they had experience. This was how they began the process of forgetting the people who turned their backs” (97).

The narrative flashes back to 1961.

Mick and June’s divorce. Mick immediately marries Veronica, whom he quickly cheats on with a woman named Sandra. June reads in a magazine that within four months, they are divorced.

While Mick thinks about the kids and June, he never calls, believing that he has still given them enough by paying child support and knowing that June is there to take care of them. He also doesn’t think that he has hurt them as much as his parents hurt him. He is an only child, born to Carlo and Anna Riva. They loved one another, despite the fact that Carlo was unfaithful and sometimes hit his wife. However, they never paid Mick much attention. He would often take care of himself.

Mick remarries again after Veronica, getting it annulled the next day. When June notices that Nina sees the news in a magazine, she tells her not to worry about “that garbage” and pours herself a drink (102).

In 1962, Mick returns to June, drunk. He begs her to take him back, telling her that he loves her and their children. In the end, June lets him kiss her. Nina doesn’t recognize him at the table the next morning, but he explains that he is her father and that he will never leave again.