Malibu Rising

The Riva siblings’ inheritance from their parents is a key theme in Malibu Rising, and the “Riva lips”—Mick’s “billowy bottom lip topped by [a] thinner upper lip” (12) is a symbol of this. Mick’s celebrity makes his lips an iconic trademark, so the fact that it recurs in his children’s faces cements their genetic connection to Mick. Everyone Mick fathers has the Riva lips: Nina and Hud identify Casey as a half-sibling because “Casey Greens did not look anything like Nina or Jay or Hud or Kit or Mic. Except for that lip” (237).

The Riva lips are the most tangible sign of Mick’s influence on the siblings’ lives. Just as ever-present as his inescapable fame, Mick’s lips make his children worry about what they have inherited from their absent father. Nina realizes that she took on responsibility that he refused to shoulder; Jay has a similar appetite for fame and women; and Hud has no other role model for how to be a father. However, the children realize that the parent they are much more closely connected to is June, whose love and devotion has kept them grounded and ultimately loyal to one another.