The Golden Spoon

The novel opens during a heavy thunderstorm that makes the isolated Grafton Manor seem even more remote. Already, the mood is ominous; even Betsy Martin, who grew up there, is disturbed when she sees “a flash of lightning at the window followed by a violent bang of thunder” (1). Betsy’s walk through the empty tent and her musings on this season’s contestants establish her proprietary attitude toward Bake Week, indicating her desire to be in control and manage relationships. She worries about the show’s future and blames the introduction of Archie Morris for causing these problems, refusing to believe that everything wasn’t fine before. Significantly, although Betsy’s scream is the final image of the prologue, Maxwell does not describe what it is that causes this reaction, referring to it only as “the horror above her” (4). By saving the more grotesque image of Archie’s corpse for later in the novel, Maxwell introduces a vague sense of foreboding that looms over the tent itself along with the cameras and lighting equipment. Since the tent is the site of the contest itself, a sense of The Dangers of Competition and Rivalry already hovers over the bakers even before they enter the space. There can be no winners in this game, even if it is not yet clear why that will be the case.

The press release that immediately follows Betsy’s scream, under the heading, “Two Weeks Ago” presents a stark contrast to the prologue’s revelation of horrors in the baking tent. Written in the anodyne language of corporate communications, the press release introduces the bakers in their most simplistic, made-for-TV guises, laying the groundwork for the broader theme of Defining Identity and Authenticity. Their names gesture toward some level of racial and ethnic diversity, and their professions, which range from tech entrepreneur to unemployed journalist and server at a small-town diner, hint at other socioeconomic differences. These biographies provide a baseline against which the characters’ more detailed selves will develop. In this respect, the structure of The Golden Spoon mirrors that of shows like The Great British Bake Off, where participants are introduced in broad terms (“she’s an X from Y”; “he lives in A with B and C”), while only those who manage to return each week are given time to build more complex personas.

From this point on, Maxwell advances the plot through short chapters narrated in the first person by each of the bakers, with occasional “Betsy” chapters that continue to use the third-person narration of the prologue. The first person creates an illusion of intimacy that Betsy’s more distanced chapters cannot; the narrative voice thus reinforces the divisions that Betsy imposes within the manor, where she bans contestants, staff, and crew from entering the East Wing where she lives. It also reinforces a quality of Bake Week—and, by extension—its real-life inspirations: Where Betsy, as host and directing force, is able to manage access to her home and her inner thoughts, the bakers themselves are expected to be authentic and vulnerable in the tent, as this makes for the best television. At the same time, the first-person narration of each contestant builds sympathy for their situations and actions.  

The “Two Weeks Ago” section dedicates each of its five chapters to one of the baking contestants; Pradyumna appears as a character in others’ narratives but does not narrate a chapter until the next section. Limiting the narrative’s scope to the experience of one character at a time allows Maxwell to build suspense, as there is no centralized, omniscient consciousness to establish a consensus reality.

Moreover, given the atmosphere of competition and rivalry, the first-person narratives reveal more about the contestants than they are willing to share with their fellow bakers, revealing nuances about their relationship to baking and their attachment (or lack thereof) to Bake Week and Betsy Martin herself—all the nuances that make it to television in overly simplified, manipulated form, if they make it there at all. Thus, Gerald reveals himself as a meticulous man who views baking as an equation that can easily be solved “if you look in the right places” (11). His philosophy of baking mirrors his perspective on life, while his commitment to doing the right things in the right way, a legacy of his upbringing with an immigrant mother, will drive Gerald to investigate the sabotage as a means to save the show itself from any manipulation.

Hannah shares some of Gerald’s obsession with order, but she imposes those energies on herself rather than on her baking as such: Eager and focused, Hannah enters the manor aware of her “need to be perfect” (17). Unlike Gerald, Hannah hints at a willingness to shirk rules if she thinks it will help her advance. Beyond Betsy, who begins the novel in a place of relative comfort, Hannah is the first character explicitly to embody the theme of The Allure of Fame and Success. As the youngest contestant, she is less established in her career than the others and more keen to leave her hometown in Minnesota. (All of the other contestants hail from the East Coast: New York City, Boston, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.) Hannah’s naïve pursuit of perfection and her keen but limited self-awareness are made more intense through a juxtaposition with Peter, a family-oriented baker who finds contentment in his close relationships, and Stella who, though currently in a career slump, has already experienced success as a journalist.

The final character to narrate a chapter in Part 1 is Lottie, the oldest and wisest of the contestants. Her chapter focuses largely on her perceptions of other people. She realizes that Stella is “unmothered” and immediately perceives the tension between Betsy and Archie that Betsy is so committed to hiding. In contrast to Stella in particular, Lottie is unimpressed by Betsy. As the others struggle to impress Betsy at their first dinner, Lottie recognizes that it “feels a bit like a competition already, like we are all vying to be noticed by her” (35). While the need for Betsy’s acceptance disguises her true nature, Lottie already recognizes something darker beneath Betsy’s performance of hospitality. As the closing voice of the “Four Days Earlier” section, Lottie occupies a key position as someone who may know more than others.