Ironically, for an earnest study of how to be successful and stay sane, ‘Affluenza’ is destined to become a kind of perverse status symbol. By sporting a copy on the Tube or the bus, the reader can be assumed to be saying: Yes, I’m successful enough, well-to-do enough and middle-class enough to need to heed this book’s advice.
But for those willing to give it a serious read, there’s plenty of good stuff here. James, that psychologist bloke from the Guardian, begins with a less-than-subtle self-diagnosis questionnaire: ‘Recently, has it seemed to you that there is no light at the end of the tunnel? Have you felt pathetic, incompetent or useless?’ He then continues with his (somewhat ill-conceived and insensitive) ‘bourgeois anxiety as HIV’ metaphor, smugly identifying emotionally distressed affluenza ‘sufferers’ among his rather gripping case studies garnered from round the globe. The obscenely loaded/near-suicidal ‘Sam’ from New York has to be read about to be believed, but we meet plenty of more life-affirming characters, too.
Yet despite all this good work, James’ suggested ‘vaccines’ against ‘the virus’ are disappointingly obvious: work less, have more meaningful relationships and spend more time with the kids. (Indeed, many a page dwells on the importance of family life, reiterating the conclusion of his previous book, ‘They F*** You Up’.) James’ most ambitious and therefore most interesting recommendations come right at the end, in the form of a sort of open letter to Blair and Brown. But if none of the above works, you can always move to Denmark: with their generous childcare provision and healthy attitudes to working hours, the Danes are the sanest lot in James’ mad, middle-class world.
