A billionaire’s son and first-time novelist satirizes his own people

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Daniel Breyer didn’t have to go far to observe the ultra-wealthy for his first novel. In “Smokebirds," a social satire out Tuesday that explores the dark side of inherited riches, Breyer observes the psyche of the elite from his own privileged perch.

As a child of venture-capital billionaire Jim Breyer, he’s been a fly on lots of the walls that separate the 0.0001 percent from the rest of the world. The writer, 30, who currently works for his father, did not build his novel around the San Francisco tech world that raised him. Instead, he centered it on a northern California logging dynasty, from the bullying lumber baron grandpa who profits off wildfires and climate change to the toxic nepo-babies ruined by their riches.

Breyer spoke with the Journal about his father’s reaction to the book, the difference between millionaires and billionaires and why his dog is in his author photo. This book is about fire season. The impetus came in 2020, during I guess it was called “Orange Sky Day," somewhat comically, but it was like an Armageddon event in San Francisco where the sky was bright orange and everything was dark and gloomy and nobody knew what time it was.

And the reaction of a lot of people was, “How do we get out of the city?" What an ultimate privilege—a climate-change event is happening and feeling like, “Oh, how do we escape from this?" Instead of snowbirds fleeing the winter, they’re fleeing the smoke. “Fire season sabbatical." I’m the ultimate nepo-baby in a lot of senses. I grew up in these circles and there’s a sense that comes with that, the worst kind, of feeling like you’re better than other people.