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Long Island Compromise
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An exhilarating novel about one American family, the dark moment that shatters their suburban paradise, and the wild legacy of trauma and inheritance, from the New York Times bestselling author of Fleishman Is in Trouble
New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • New York Magazine’s Beach Read Book Club Pick • Belletrist Book Club Pick
“A big, juicy, wickedly funny social satire . . . probably the funniest book ever about generational family trauma.”—Oprah Daily
“Joins the pantheon of great American novels . . . Long Island Compromise is an exploration of intergenerational trauma and an unabashed critique of income inequality . . . Brodesser-Akner has written a humane, brazen, gorgeous novel whose words dance exuberantly on the page.”—Los Angeles Times
“Is this book as good [as Fleishman is in Trouble]? It’s better. Sprawling yet nimble, this is [Brodesser-Akner’s] Big American Reform Jewish Novel . . . Brodesser-Akner is empathetic to her characters’ pathological inability to know themselves, but she is also merciless when it comes to the idea that acknowledging confusion is not enough.”—The New York Times
“Comprising immersive, tragicomic deep dives into the Fletchers’ personal pathologies and inner demons . . . Long Island Compromise is ingeniously plotted, its various storylines building toward several extremely satisfying plot twists . . .The potentially corrosive nature of wealth has rarely been explored with such humanity.”—The Atlantic
“Brodesser-Akner is a keen observer of class aspiration as a survival method.”—The New Yorker
“Were we gangsters? No. But did we know how to start a fire?”
In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety.
But now, nearly forty years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all. Carl has spent the ensuing years secretly seeking closure to the matter of his kidnapping, while his wife, Ruth, has spent her potential protecting her husband’s emotional health. Their three grown children aren’t doing much better: Nathan’s chronic fear won’t allow him to advance at his law firm; Beamer, a Hollywood screenwriter, will consume anything—substance, foodstuff, women—in order to numb his own perpetual terror; and Jenny has spent her life so bent on proving that she’s not a product of her family’s pathology that she has come to define it. As they hover at the delicate precipice of a different kind of survival, they learn that the family fortune has dwindled to just about nothing, and they must face desperate questions about how much their wealth has played a part in both their lives’ successes and failures.
Long Island Compromise spans the entirety of one family’s history, winding through decades and generations, all the way to the outrageous present, and confronting the mainstays of American Jewish life: tradition, the pursuit of success, the terror of history, fear of the future, old wives’ tales, evil eyes, ambition, achievement, boredom, dybbuks, inheritance, pyramid schemes, right-wing capitalists, beta-blockers, psychics, and the mostly unspoken love and shared experience that unite a family forever.
New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • New York Magazine’s Beach Read Book Club Pick • Belletrist Book Club Pick
“A big, juicy, wickedly funny social satire . . . probably the funniest book ever about generational family trauma.”—Oprah Daily
“Joins the pantheon of great American novels . . . Long Island Compromise is an exploration of intergenerational trauma and an unabashed critique of income inequality . . . Brodesser-Akner has written a humane, brazen, gorgeous novel whose words dance exuberantly on the page.”—Los Angeles Times
“Is this book as good [as Fleishman is in Trouble]? It’s better. Sprawling yet nimble, this is [Brodesser-Akner’s] Big American Reform Jewish Novel . . . Brodesser-Akner is empathetic to her characters’ pathological inability to know themselves, but she is also merciless when it comes to the idea that acknowledging confusion is not enough.”—The New York Times
“Comprising immersive, tragicomic deep dives into the Fletchers’ personal pathologies and inner demons . . . Long Island Compromise is ingeniously plotted, its various storylines building toward several extremely satisfying plot twists . . .The potentially corrosive nature of wealth has rarely been explored with such humanity.”—The Atlantic
“Brodesser-Akner is a keen observer of class aspiration as a survival method.”—The New Yorker
“Were we gangsters? No. But did we know how to start a fire?”
In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety.
But now, nearly forty years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all. Carl has spent the ensuing years secretly seeking closure to the matter of his kidnapping, while his wife, Ruth, has spent her potential protecting her husband’s emotional health. Their three grown children aren’t doing much better: Nathan’s chronic fear won’t allow him to advance at his law firm; Beamer, a Hollywood screenwriter, will consume anything—substance, foodstuff, women—in order to numb his own perpetual terror; and Jenny has spent her life so bent on proving that she’s not a product of her family’s pathology that she has come to define it. As they hover at the delicate precipice of a different kind of survival, they learn that the family fortune has dwindled to just about nothing, and they must face desperate questions about how much their wealth has played a part in both their lives’ successes and failures.
Long Island Compromise spans the entirety of one family’s history, winding through decades and generations, all the way to the outrageous present, and confronting the mainstays of American Jewish life: tradition, the pursuit of success, the terror of history, fear of the future, old wives’ tales, evil eyes, ambition, achievement, boredom, dybbuks, inheritance, pyramid schemes, right-wing capitalists, beta-blockers, psychics, and the mostly unspoken love and shared experience that unite a family forever.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published July 9, 2024
About the author
Taffy Brodesser-Akner
6 books1,611 followersTaffy Brodesser-Akner is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and the New York Times bestselling author of Fleishman Is in Trouble, which has been translated into more than a dozen languages. She is also the creator and executive producer of its Emmy-nominated limited series adaptation for FX. Long Island Compromise is her second novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,272 reviews
July 16, 2024
TW: S&M; self-abasement, kidnapping
Outlier review. I did NOT enjoy Taffy Brodesser-Anker’s “Long Island Compromise”. Perhaps it’s my age. I found too much graphic S&M and gratuitous self-abasement for which I really didn’t see the necessity. She could have told her story without that.
Next, the characters are whiny self-entitled wealthy people. They were grating. It was difficult to continue reading, because when I encounter people like that, I remove myself from any situation around them. Additionally, it’s difficult to read about characters complaining about their abundant trust funds. I didn’t see humor in the characters’ neurosis nor predicaments.
This is a story about intergenerational trauma regarding wealth. Yes, wealthy people are traumatized by wealth. Add to that, the family is Jewish American, which carries all the intergenerational trauma involving the history of Jews, most recently the Holocaust. Now we have a toxic stew of “Your Grandfather survived the Holocaust for this?” to “wah-wah my life was too easy for me and now I have no direction and its money’s fault”.
All the Jewish female characters were despicable. I cringed reading how the mother and grandmother talked to their offspring. I didn’t find humor in the way they talked to their children/grandchildren/daughter-in-law’s.
Plot summary: a patriarch is kidnapped for a week. This trauma is never addressed. The matriarch (his mother) wants everyone to ignore that it happened. “It happened to his body, not his mind”. This PTSD claims each family member’s soul in a different way. The story is told by character, with the first character’s, Beamer (the middle child), story. Unfortunately, Brodesser-Akner gives Beamer far too much storyline involving TMI.
The reader learns of all the characters personal struggles, their POV’s. She is a clever writer which is why I continued reading this 446-page novel. These people made their fortune off Styrofoam. That alone is hysterical.
Her prose deserves 5 stars. Her plot deserves 5 stars because it’s so layered in its telling. The characters get 1 star for complexity. I believe she could have accomplished what she was trying to tell without the shock-value of Beamer and the cringe-worthy value of Ruth and the whininess of Jenny. Again, I’m an outlier, and I don’t think I am the target audience.
My review is based upon an ARC that I received from my public library.
Outlier review. I did NOT enjoy Taffy Brodesser-Anker’s “Long Island Compromise”. Perhaps it’s my age. I found too much graphic S&M and gratuitous self-abasement for which I really didn’t see the necessity. She could have told her story without that.
Next, the characters are whiny self-entitled wealthy people. They were grating. It was difficult to continue reading, because when I encounter people like that, I remove myself from any situation around them. Additionally, it’s difficult to read about characters complaining about their abundant trust funds. I didn’t see humor in the characters’ neurosis nor predicaments.
This is a story about intergenerational trauma regarding wealth. Yes, wealthy people are traumatized by wealth. Add to that, the family is Jewish American, which carries all the intergenerational trauma involving the history of Jews, most recently the Holocaust. Now we have a toxic stew of “Your Grandfather survived the Holocaust for this?” to “wah-wah my life was too easy for me and now I have no direction and its money’s fault”.
All the Jewish female characters were despicable. I cringed reading how the mother and grandmother talked to their offspring. I didn’t find humor in the way they talked to their children/grandchildren/daughter-in-law’s.
Plot summary: a patriarch is kidnapped for a week. This trauma is never addressed. The matriarch (his mother) wants everyone to ignore that it happened. “It happened to his body, not his mind”. This PTSD claims each family member’s soul in a different way. The story is told by character, with the first character’s, Beamer (the middle child), story. Unfortunately, Brodesser-Akner gives Beamer far too much storyline involving TMI.
The reader learns of all the characters personal struggles, their POV’s. She is a clever writer which is why I continued reading this 446-page novel. These people made their fortune off Styrofoam. That alone is hysterical.
Her prose deserves 5 stars. Her plot deserves 5 stars because it’s so layered in its telling. The characters get 1 star for complexity. I believe she could have accomplished what she was trying to tell without the shock-value of Beamer and the cringe-worthy value of Ruth and the whininess of Jenny. Again, I’m an outlier, and I don’t think I am the target audience.
My review is based upon an ARC that I received from my public library.
July 25, 2024
I feel as though I’ve read many, many books in the past couple of years where the main character does a couple of morally iffy things and then spends the bulk of the third act apologising and taking their friends out to dinner. “Yeah man, that was pretty messed up, what you did” is an exchange I never ever need to read again as long as I live. Narratively we all understand the need for growth and lesson-learning, but I feel recently we’ve over-corrected. The greatest thing about novels as an art form is that novels quite literally force you to sit with things. You have to sit and think about what it might be like to be a traumatised narcissist with OCD and no ethical concerns whatsoever about the homeless shelters that you are helping to convert into dorms, and you have to do that (in Bernard’s chapters) for 150 pages. And I think that’s great.
Every single person int his book is a snob, a pervert or an asshole. Even the side characters in the tangents of this book are snobs, perverts and assholes. The graveyard con artist? Chef’s kiss. I love Taffy Brodesser-Akner, I think she’s one of the finest prose writers working today, and I loved this book so much. One million stars.
Every single person int his book is a snob, a pervert or an asshole. Even the side characters in the tangents of this book are snobs, perverts and assholes. The graveyard con artist? Chef’s kiss. I love Taffy Brodesser-Akner, I think she’s one of the finest prose writers working today, and I loved this book so much. One million stars.
July 9, 2024
Let’s get this out of the way up front, so to speak: The title of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new novel, “Long Island Compromise,” is a reference to anal sex. That says something about the story’s subtlety.
Not that anybody’s turning to Brodesser-Akner for subtlety. Her previous novel, the spectacular debut “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” crashed onto the scene with klaxons blaring. That tale of a marriage collapsing was a dazzling explosion of comic brilliance that proved the New York Times profile writer could be even more outrageously engaging when she made up her own characters.
But following up after a great debut carries the mixed blessings of inherited wealth, which, as it happens, is the heavy-handed subject of “Long Island Compromise.” It’s a story about the children of a rich family who struggle to fulfill the promise of their wildly successful parents.
The Fletchers of Middle Rock, Long Island, are the very embodiment of the Jewish American Dream. With all the curdled envy that Brodesser-Akner can channel so hilariously, the gossipy narrator tells us, “They were the pinnacle.” They are at once fiercely defensive of their heritage and determined to pursue all the trappings (and plastic surgeries) of assimilation. Eat your heart out, Jay Gatsby: The Fletchers live in the largest house “on a block of extremely robbable homes” with a deck that extends out over the Long Island Sound like it “was their own personal swimming pool.”
Their origin story has been retold and polished like a book of the Torah: Grandpa Zelig escaped the Nazis and made it to the United States with nothing but the clothes on his back and the formula for a revolutionary packaging compound called Styrofoam. A few decades later....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
Not that anybody’s turning to Brodesser-Akner for subtlety. Her previous novel, the spectacular debut “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” crashed onto the scene with klaxons blaring. That tale of a marriage collapsing was a dazzling explosion of comic brilliance that proved the New York Times profile writer could be even more outrageously engaging when she made up her own characters.
But following up after a great debut carries the mixed blessings of inherited wealth, which, as it happens, is the heavy-handed subject of “Long Island Compromise.” It’s a story about the children of a rich family who struggle to fulfill the promise of their wildly successful parents.
The Fletchers of Middle Rock, Long Island, are the very embodiment of the Jewish American Dream. With all the curdled envy that Brodesser-Akner can channel so hilariously, the gossipy narrator tells us, “They were the pinnacle.” They are at once fiercely defensive of their heritage and determined to pursue all the trappings (and plastic surgeries) of assimilation. Eat your heart out, Jay Gatsby: The Fletchers live in the largest house “on a block of extremely robbable homes” with a deck that extends out over the Long Island Sound like it “was their own personal swimming pool.”
Their origin story has been retold and polished like a book of the Torah: Grandpa Zelig escaped the Nazis and made it to the United States with nothing but the clothes on his back and the formula for a revolutionary packaging compound called Styrofoam. A few decades later....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
Want to read
June 18, 2024that cover!
August 17, 2024
Of the 550 books I've rated so far on Goodreads, this is only the 3d or 4th time I've given a book just 1 star.
And it's well-deserved.
This book is even worse than the author's debut novel, "Fleishman Is in Trouble," which I felt was partly redeemed by the stunning last few pages.
The premise of this second novel could have led to an actually good book: That the true story of a father's kidnapping isn't his 5-day ordeal or his apparently miraculous rescue; the real story starts the day after he returns, with the ongoing impact on his life and his family.
I will even acknowledge that the last 100 or so pages of "Long Island Compromise" finally develop an interesting plot, with some unexpected twists and a happily cynical ending.
However, to get to that small reward, a reader must plow through some 350 pages of the author's trademark obsession with kinky sex, BDSM, drugs, slobberingly described over-the-top lifestyles, and whiny, self-indulgent rich people.
Bo-ring.
Also, author Taffy Brokesser-Akner indulges over and over in sophomoric satire of easy targets--ie, castrating Jewish mothers and wives with Long Island accents.
Isn't it possible that a kidnapping could affect a family in traumatic ways that have nothing to do with narcissism, wasting obscene amounts of money, and kinky sex? But Brokesser-Akner traded imagination and creativity, for a quick best-selling fix of sex and money.
(So why did I read TWO books by this author, if I despise her oeuvre so much? Sigh... Each was chosen by a different book club I belong to. I love all 4 of my book clubs, but I will skip a club meeting rather than ever again read anything by this alleged writer.)
And it's well-deserved.
This book is even worse than the author's debut novel, "Fleishman Is in Trouble," which I felt was partly redeemed by the stunning last few pages.
The premise of this second novel could have led to an actually good book: That the true story of a father's kidnapping isn't his 5-day ordeal or his apparently miraculous rescue; the real story starts the day after he returns, with the ongoing impact on his life and his family.
I will even acknowledge that the last 100 or so pages of "Long Island Compromise" finally develop an interesting plot, with some unexpected twists and a happily cynical ending.
However, to get to that small reward, a reader must plow through some 350 pages of the author's trademark obsession with kinky sex, BDSM, drugs, slobberingly described over-the-top lifestyles, and whiny, self-indulgent rich people.
Bo-ring.
Also, author Taffy Brokesser-Akner indulges over and over in sophomoric satire of easy targets--ie, castrating Jewish mothers and wives with Long Island accents.
Isn't it possible that a kidnapping could affect a family in traumatic ways that have nothing to do with narcissism, wasting obscene amounts of money, and kinky sex? But Brokesser-Akner traded imagination and creativity, for a quick best-selling fix of sex and money.
(So why did I read TWO books by this author, if I despise her oeuvre so much? Sigh... Each was chosen by a different book club I belong to. I love all 4 of my book clubs, but I will skip a club meeting rather than ever again read anything by this alleged writer.)
August 18, 2024
Wealthy Long Island factory owner Carl Fletcher is kidnapped by masked men and held for ransom. Days later, he is freed without much physical injury, but life for his young family will never be the same. Decades later, his now grown children are each uniquely impacted by the trauma. Nathan is a lawyer with a beautiful family…but he’s also dealing with non-stop, crippling anxiety. Beamer is a screenwriter whose career is faltering while his addictions and odd sexual proclivities are only growing more intense. Jenny, always the academic star, is now middle aged and still hasn’t found anything she’s truly passionate about. When a family member dies at the same time the Fletchers’ finances take a turn for the worse, the siblings are drawn back into each other’s orbit…and must face their demons in order to experience growth.
I loved this book. The author has such a talent for witty prose. She balances comedic circumstances with deep, heartfelt emotions like no other. Her wacky characters would feel cartoonish in the hands of a less deft writer, but instead they are complex and compelling. By the time you finish reading this book, you will feel like a full-fledged member of the Fletcher clan.
I loved this book. The author has such a talent for witty prose. She balances comedic circumstances with deep, heartfelt emotions like no other. Her wacky characters would feel cartoonish in the hands of a less deft writer, but instead they are complex and compelling. By the time you finish reading this book, you will feel like a full-fledged member of the Fletcher clan.
August 5, 2024
If Jonathan Franzen were Jewish, and understood men and women, and had a slightly less dry sense of humor Crossroads would be Long Island Compromise. (ETA 7/24 -- It appears people read this as an indication I don't like Franzen. I love Franzen! I like every one of his novels. Crossroads was my favorite book last year and The Corrections is an all-time favorite. He just doesn't understand women as well as he does men, and he is not a rollicking box of humor.) I don't have time for a full review, but will say that at its root this is about trauma, trauma based on our own experiences, including the experience of living with the trauma of other family members. There are a boatload of storylines, this covers all the members of the Fletcher family, and each storyline ties in with the others, but addresses different trauma responses. Brodesser-Akner also digs into the societal problems that bother her with a deft touch (rather than Franzen's pretentious finger-wagging), most especially ancestral wealth (both its negative impacts and the inability to grow wealth in the way people could in the 20th century.) The book is filled with humor, bawdiness, pathos, and surprises (especially the resolution of the kidnapping storyline.) It is brilliant. (The first 50 pages are a little overwhelming, but it all makes sense at the end.) I see this as the love child of Franzen, Phillip Roth, and Chekov. Your enjoyment of this book will likely depend on whether that sounds like an appealing (literary) menage a trois.
July 8, 2024
HAPPY PUB WEEK! (Bonus content - the piece TBA wrote in the NYT about the real life story behind the kidnapping plot - must read)
Every now and then a book comes along that is so good that it is also so hard to read. This is one of those books. This book has possibly the best propulsive opening scene I have ever read, followed by one of the hardest chapters dealing with sexual transgressions and drug use that I could barely stomach. Then we veered back into a chapter that was so funny that I actually laughed and laughed.
Brodesser-Akner is a gifted writer. I enjoyed Fleishmann is in Trouble, but perhaps not as much as my peers. But her NYT article on attending a Taylor Swift concert was one of the best pieces of non-fiction narrative writing I have read. This book contains multitudes. The kidnapping of a family patriarch based on a similar incident of someone Brodesser-Akner knew when she was a child. The story of Jews in America - how they got there, what they did when they arrived, and where they are now. The story of unlikable adult siblings managing their scarred and traumatic upbringing. And bigger questions - about how money corrupts and soothes, how generations evolve and adapt, and more. Highly recommend. Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the e-ARC.
Every now and then a book comes along that is so good that it is also so hard to read. This is one of those books. This book has possibly the best propulsive opening scene I have ever read, followed by one of the hardest chapters dealing with sexual transgressions and drug use that I could barely stomach. Then we veered back into a chapter that was so funny that I actually laughed and laughed.
Brodesser-Akner is a gifted writer. I enjoyed Fleishmann is in Trouble, but perhaps not as much as my peers. But her NYT article on attending a Taylor Swift concert was one of the best pieces of non-fiction narrative writing I have read. This book contains multitudes. The kidnapping of a family patriarch based on a similar incident of someone Brodesser-Akner knew when she was a child. The story of Jews in America - how they got there, what they did when they arrived, and where they are now. The story of unlikable adult siblings managing their scarred and traumatic upbringing. And bigger questions - about how money corrupts and soothes, how generations evolve and adapt, and more. Highly recommend. Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the e-ARC.
August 16, 2024
A big, sprawling family saga that is riveting, funny, surprising, and smart -- and deeply moving. A successful Long Island father and businessman is kidnapped, and now, roughly forty years later, he and his wife and his mother and his three children are still coping (badly, SO badly) with the legacy. They're all haunted, damaged by the trauma even if (in theory) the kidnapping ended well: Dad came home! But beneath the surface swim the sharks of trauma. It's a brilliant book and I loved it in much the same way I devoured Jonathan Franzen's THE CORRECTIONS and Jenny Jackson's PINEAPPLE STREET.
July 9, 2024
Update 7/9/24: Reposting my review to celebrate that today is publication day!
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for sending me an ARC of Long Island Compromise in exchange for an honest review. The Goodreads description perfectly summarizes the story here (if anything, it says a bit too much), so I’ll jump to my thoughts.
I expect most people will come to Long Island Compromise having already read Ms. Brodesser-Akner’s debut bestseller Fleischman Is in Trouble. I’m happy to report this novel shares so much of what made her first book so very good. Long Island Compromise is a great character study. Beamer, Nathan, Jenny, and Ruth are all rendered in exquisite detail. They’re not particularly good people, but they are captivating in their self-sabotage. But the real star of the book is the writing itself. There are so many quotable lines and paragraphs; I must have highlighted a hundred of them. It has a fun, winking style as if the story is being told by another Middld Rock resident, alternately drawn to and repulsed by the Fletchers.
Long Island Compromise is a beautifully written, compelling story of the perils of inherited wealth. Recommended.
And the Fletcher children had not been immune to the inertia of all rich kids, which was to lack the imagination that the money could ever possibly stop coming in. They spent their money like third-generation American children do: quickly, and without thinking too hard about it.
…
No one in the history of Middle Rock, of Long Island, of New York, of maybe America and therefore the world had had the potential and rigor for achievement that Jenny Fletcher had had. When finally she fell, it was from the top of the skyscraper. And like most such falls, it was a suicide.
But hold on. Like all the other Bible stories, it’s best told from the beginning.
…
Maybe that was the real Long Island Compromise, that you can be successful on your own steam or you can be a basket case, and whichever you are is determined by the circumstances into which you were born. Your poverty will create a great drive in your children. Or your wealth will doom them into the veal that Jenny described at her science fair, people who are raised to never be able to support a life so that when they’re finally allowed to wander outside their cages for the first time on their way to their slaughter, they can’t even stand up on their own legs. But the people who rise to success on their own never stop feeling the fear at the door, and the people lucky enough to be born into comfort and safety never become fully realized people in the first place. And who is to say which is better?
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for sending me an ARC of Long Island Compromise in exchange for an honest review. The Goodreads description perfectly summarizes the story here (if anything, it says a bit too much), so I’ll jump to my thoughts.
I expect most people will come to Long Island Compromise having already read Ms. Brodesser-Akner’s debut bestseller Fleischman Is in Trouble. I’m happy to report this novel shares so much of what made her first book so very good. Long Island Compromise is a great character study. Beamer, Nathan, Jenny, and Ruth are all rendered in exquisite detail. They’re not particularly good people, but they are captivating in their self-sabotage. But the real star of the book is the writing itself. There are so many quotable lines and paragraphs; I must have highlighted a hundred of them. It has a fun, winking style as if the story is being told by another Middld Rock resident, alternately drawn to and repulsed by the Fletchers.
Long Island Compromise is a beautifully written, compelling story of the perils of inherited wealth. Recommended.
May 1, 2024
I HATED this book. I should have quit reading it, but by the time I realized how much I disliked it I was far enough in I didn't want to abandon it because I'm already far behind on my reading goal for the year. I got sucked into the kidnapping plot at the beginning of the book that takes place when the three major protagonists of the book are small children or not born yet. Then when the plot skips ahead and they're horrible adults I lost complete interest. It's not like it's poorly written or anything. I'm sure plenty of people will sing the praises of this book. I just loathed every one of the characters in this book. I get that it's also sort of the point. I don't care. Life is too short for me to want to spend it with the awful characters in this book.
September 2, 2024
the setup…
Meet the Fletchers. They’re a wealthy Jewish family living in the Long Island township of Middle Rock who were shaped by one event decades ago. In 1980, Carl Fletcher, son of Phyllis and the late Zelig, was kidnapped from his driveway and held for ransom. His pregnant wife Ruth and two young sons, Nathan and Bernard, lived in terror until the money was exchanged and he was returned home. They all resumed their lives as if nothing had happened and daughter Jenny was born soon after, not having been a part of the trauma but raised by those who were forever changed by what happened. Fast forward to present day and the effects of that one event resonate in the adult Fletcher children in the most destructive ways.
the heart of the story…
Everyone in this family lived their lives going forward based on how that trauma left them back in 1980. No one talked about it in healthy ways and the children were left to their own untrained devices to manage through. Nathan, the oldest, suffered from chronic fear and became a lawyer with a dead end career path. Bernard, now called Beamer, became a Hollywood screenwriter, stuck in creating stories that all involved a kidnapping and immersed himself in self destructive medications (drugs, sex and overstimulation). Jenny spent her life trying to prove she wasn’t her family. It’s a compelling and rich family saga, laced with humor, tragedy and extraordinary dynamics.
the narration…
Ballerini is one of my favorite narrators and he adeptly captured the essence of each family member. It’s a seemingly impossible task but he delivered an outstanding performance.
the bottom line…
The stories were painful to experience and this complicated family wasn’t always the most sympathetic. Be forewarned that the depravity of Beamer’s is hard to suffer through. The final revelations were sort of twisty, creating an irony that changed everything. It’s long but so worth the incredible journey.
Posted on Blue Mood Café
(Thanks to Libro.fm and Random House Audio for my complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.)
Meet the Fletchers. They’re a wealthy Jewish family living in the Long Island township of Middle Rock who were shaped by one event decades ago. In 1980, Carl Fletcher, son of Phyllis and the late Zelig, was kidnapped from his driveway and held for ransom. His pregnant wife Ruth and two young sons, Nathan and Bernard, lived in terror until the money was exchanged and he was returned home. They all resumed their lives as if nothing had happened and daughter Jenny was born soon after, not having been a part of the trauma but raised by those who were forever changed by what happened. Fast forward to present day and the effects of that one event resonate in the adult Fletcher children in the most destructive ways.
the heart of the story…
Everyone in this family lived their lives going forward based on how that trauma left them back in 1980. No one talked about it in healthy ways and the children were left to their own untrained devices to manage through. Nathan, the oldest, suffered from chronic fear and became a lawyer with a dead end career path. Bernard, now called Beamer, became a Hollywood screenwriter, stuck in creating stories that all involved a kidnapping and immersed himself in self destructive medications (drugs, sex and overstimulation). Jenny spent her life trying to prove she wasn’t her family. It’s a compelling and rich family saga, laced with humor, tragedy and extraordinary dynamics.
the narration…
Ballerini is one of my favorite narrators and he adeptly captured the essence of each family member. It’s a seemingly impossible task but he delivered an outstanding performance.
the bottom line…
The stories were painful to experience and this complicated family wasn’t always the most sympathetic. Be forewarned that the depravity of Beamer’s is hard to suffer through. The final revelations were sort of twisty, creating an irony that changed everything. It’s long but so worth the incredible journey.
Posted on Blue Mood Café
(Thanks to Libro.fm and Random House Audio for my complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.)
July 11, 2024
Long Island Compromise follows the Fletchers in the aftermath of two life changing events: the kidnapping and subsequent return of patriarch Carl Fletcher, and later the revelation that the factory that provided the family with their enormous wealth is suddenly worthless.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner has such a distinct writing style, often focused on maximalism. It's very funny and almost feels like you're gossiping with a friend. She clearly knows her characters so well; their neuroses, hopes, and fears are all laid bare for the reader. If more was going on, this would potentially make a great character driven work. My problem with this book lies in the fact that everything is totally static.
In the beginning pages, the kidnapping occurs. The next 80% of the book is devoid of action. In the first three sections of the book, we are introduced to each of the Fletcher children. We are dropped into the lives of these characters as they worry their way through life and eventually, respectively, find out that their money is gone. Everything interesting happens in the past, though. Each section is like a mini life story for each sibling, but nothing ever happens in the present. Why chose the story to happen "now" when all the events are past? By the time every character is set up and the bombshell is dropped, the novel uses comparatively few pages for the characters to actually do anything.
In fact, as much as I found the first 3/4 of the book to be frustratingly repetitive, it didn't compare to the disappointment of the last 1/4 which is so rushed and so theme heavy. Multiple paragraphs of Brodesser-Akner saying to the reader "This Is The Theme by the way." The conflict is built up so much and then resolved almost instantly.
This is my own fault, also, but I'm a little tired of reading books where the whole thing is that rich people are also unhappy, and maybe the cause of their unhappiness is money.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner has such a distinct writing style, often focused on maximalism. It's very funny and almost feels like you're gossiping with a friend. She clearly knows her characters so well; their neuroses, hopes, and fears are all laid bare for the reader. If more was going on, this would potentially make a great character driven work. My problem with this book lies in the fact that everything is totally static.
In the beginning pages, the kidnapping occurs. The next 80% of the book is devoid of action. In the first three sections of the book, we are introduced to each of the Fletcher children. We are dropped into the lives of these characters as they worry their way through life and eventually, respectively, find out that their money is gone. Everything interesting happens in the past, though. Each section is like a mini life story for each sibling, but nothing ever happens in the present. Why chose the story to happen "now" when all the events are past? By the time every character is set up and the bombshell is dropped, the novel uses comparatively few pages for the characters to actually do anything.
In fact, as much as I found the first 3/4 of the book to be frustratingly repetitive, it didn't compare to the disappointment of the last 1/4 which is so rushed and so theme heavy. Multiple paragraphs of Brodesser-Akner saying to the reader "This Is The Theme by the way." The conflict is built up so much and then resolved almost instantly.
This is my own fault, also, but I'm a little tired of reading books where the whole thing is that rich people are also unhappy, and maybe the cause of their unhappiness is money.
September 7, 2024
2.5, rounded up. Relentlessly repetitious and tediously discursive. This is a pale imitation of Philip Roth's American Pastoral in terms of subject matter: the implosion of a wealthy Jewish family demented by multi-generational trauma and weapons-grade neurosis. And shamelessly derivative of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections: place individual family members in extreme and escalating situations of emotional torture and self-destructive peril, and watch them squirm. But this just delivers unmodulated cringe, crude satire, and painfully unsubtle social commentary over 400+ pages.
April 20, 2024
A Polish Jewish immigrant escaping the Holocaust comes to New York where he eventually accumulates wealth by opening a factory. When he dies suddenly, his son, Carl is called back to the family compound on Long Island to run the business. In 1980, Carl is kidnapped and held for $200,000 ransom which is paid. The kidnapping haunts Carl for the rest of his life, as well as affecting his three children, Nathan, Beamer, and the soon to be born Jenny. And thus the novel embarks on recounting the lives of the siblings, as well as those of the generations that came before, the after effects of the kidnapping and the guiding influences of their wealth.
Cleverly written with touches of wit, the story gets mired down at times with almost a stream of consciousness accounting of their lives and in particular their self loathing. Both historical and contemporary, it is a long novel (almost 500 pages) that touches on American Jewishness, the privilege of wealth, inherited trauma, self sabotaging , family dysfunction, women’s roles. There is a bit of a fairy tale ending and it will be interesting to see what readers think of it. I think this is a book that many will love and about which others will be less enamored.
Thanks to #Netgalley and #randomhouse for the DRC.
Cleverly written with touches of wit, the story gets mired down at times with almost a stream of consciousness accounting of their lives and in particular their self loathing. Both historical and contemporary, it is a long novel (almost 500 pages) that touches on American Jewishness, the privilege of wealth, inherited trauma, self sabotaging , family dysfunction, women’s roles. There is a bit of a fairy tale ending and it will be interesting to see what readers think of it. I think this is a book that many will love and about which others will be less enamored.
Thanks to #Netgalley and #randomhouse for the DRC.
July 15, 2024
The story of a wealthy Jewish family living on (as the title suggests) Long Island, in an enervating mostly Jewish suburb where they are the most well-to-do in an enclave of the well-to-do, a story principally concerned with generational trauma and the burden of wealth. The novel starts with a prologue in which Carl, the family patriarch, is kidnapped, brutalized, and held for a week until his wife, Ruth, pays the ransom. That event informs the family’s ensuing history: though most of the novel takes place decades later, its psychic burden influences how the family’s lives have unfolded since. After the kidnapping, Carl was left a shell of a man, and his controlling wife, Ruth, has devoted her life to protecting him, with her children her secondary concern. Nathan, the eldest son, is prey to anxieties and is a timid collection of tics that hamper his law career. Beamer is a Hollywood screenwriter of middling success (whose screenplays all feature kidnappings) who tries to soothe his underlying terror with secret addictions to drugs and BDSM. Jenny, who was in utero when her mother dropped off the ransom money, lives her life as an in-your-face protest to the family wealth; she gives away most of the very large quarterly disbursements every family member receives and is a union organizer. She’s also depressed to the point of dysfunction. They’re all trundling along on their unhappy tracks when a crisis (and a bar mitzvah) brings them together: the polystyrene factory that is the source of the family wealth is kaput and the money tap is abruptly turned off.
There’s a lot of satiric humour in this interesting, entertaining tome, but I wish the characters had been more likeable—heck, I wish any of them had been the least bit likeable. I listened to the audiobook, and Edoardo Ballerini’s brilliant, impeccable narration was spot on and kept everything humming along.
There’s a lot of satiric humour in this interesting, entertaining tome, but I wish the characters had been more likeable—heck, I wish any of them had been the least bit likeable. I listened to the audiobook, and Edoardo Ballerini’s brilliant, impeccable narration was spot on and kept everything humming along.
February 21, 2024
I was very lucky to get an ARC of this, my most highly-anticipated book of 2024. I found it incredibly compelling to read and at times (intentionally) exceedingly unpleasant. I hated it and I LOVED it. this is good, this is my best way to feel about a book. Anyway it's very jewish, very funny, very sharp, very mean, sometimes overwhelming, deeply infuriating on about 20 levels, and a total page turner. Can't wait for everyone else to read it so we can shout about it.
May 20, 2024
I love a dysfunctional family and almost never mind when I can't stand a character. Until I met Beamer. I wasn't amused by the cocktail of drugs he would take on a daily basis or the debasing S & M sex he sought out. Actually it was boring. Maybe the other siblings would be more compelling. It all seemed so over the top. I just couldn't hang in there.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the advance readers copy in exchange for an honest review. Perhaps too honest?
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the advance readers copy in exchange for an honest review. Perhaps too honest?
August 25, 2024
Update: I need to bump this up to five stars because of how much the writing has stuck with me. The voice is so, so strong, with equal parts satire and insight. My issue of not being able to follow all the timeline jumps will just have to be solved with a second reading.
Just fantastically written. I’m so impressed with this writer—she reminds me of Jeffrey Eugenedes and Franzen in the depth of her character exploration and her hyper-aware narration. Her humor was scathing but kept the reader in on the joke. It’s hard to find another book to start after this level of quality.
For me, I struggled with following the jumps in the timeline, but I know that’s my personal weakness as a reader. It was made worse by the fact that I chose to do this one on audiobook during a very busy start to the semester.
If I have a chance to slow down and read a physical copy, I’m sure I’ll be even more impressed.
What to read now??
Just fantastically written. I’m so impressed with this writer—she reminds me of Jeffrey Eugenedes and Franzen in the depth of her character exploration and her hyper-aware narration. Her humor was scathing but kept the reader in on the joke. It’s hard to find another book to start after this level of quality.
For me, I struggled with following the jumps in the timeline, but I know that’s my personal weakness as a reader. It was made worse by the fact that I chose to do this one on audiobook during a very busy start to the semester.
If I have a chance to slow down and read a physical copy, I’m sure I’ll be even more impressed.
What to read now??
June 13, 2024
A Jewish American family saga about intergenerational trauma and the trappings of family folklore and inherited wealth. At a deliciously breathless breakneck speed, we meet the Fletcher family and cycle through each of them. They’re all on the brink of losing their obscene wealth and we can do nothing but watch it unfold. But wealth, like poverty, is in your bones if you’re born into it and they can’t shake the vestiges. They’re entitled assholes, but they’re multi-dimensional entitled assholes you come to care about. I remember when I read Fleishman Is In Trouble before it came out saying it was underhyped. This will not have that problem and all I can say is believe the hype.
July 30, 2024
I can't say I enjoyed this sophomore offering from Taffy Brodesser-Akner - disappointing after having absolutely loved Fleishman Is In Trouble (the novel and the subsequent TV show). I found Long Island Compromise to be overwrought, overlong and overly repetitive. You really feel the book's length (464 pages) and every time I picked my eReader back up I sighed at how little progress I had made in the actual meat of the story, which comes at you swiftly with 1/4 remaining and is rushed to completion in an unsatisfying way. Thanks to Netgalley & Random House for the advance copy of this novel.
July 11, 2024
The three generations of Fletchers in Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Long Island Compromise run the gamut from the first generation Fletcher grandfather, who fled from Poland in 1942 with a stolen formula for polystyrene (styrofoam); to the hapless second generation who tried to live up their father’s ill-gotten success; to the downstream damage of the three third generation grandchildren, each damaged more than the next. ”’You know what they say. . . first generation builds the house, second generation lives in it, third generation burns it down.’” But yet ”they were the shining realization of the American Jewish dream, people who could load their plates with all that this country has to offer. . . The problem is that they didn’t stop to consider what the rest of us knew, which was that they had no right to set the conditions for safety and survival.” Lying seems to run through their genes from one generation to the next.
Long Island Compromise ranges from slapstick tropes to occasional attempts to more deeply communicate the intergenerational dynamics of American Eastern European Judaism. It’s a rough road that Long Island Compromise goes down, and it’s sometimes unclear just what Brodesser-Akner intended. Not being able to suss this out, it’s often difficult to find one’s bearings: is Long Island Compromise a comedy, a farce, a family melodrama, or a more serious look into the functioning and disintegration of one once successful American Jewish immigrant family? Brodesser-Akner can be humorous, with her humor filled with snark: ”’You know what happens when you marry a young shiksa?’. . . ‘You end up with an old goya.’ He still didn’t totally understand what that meant, but he thought about it constantly.” Brodesser-Akner’s own attitudes towards her characters seem mixed at best: ”The Fletchers were gone for good now, and we never had to hear their terrible name again.”
Despite the craven unpleasantness of the Fletchers, Long Island Compromise holds some pleasures. Brodesser-Akner has a dab hand with quickly sketched cutting portraits and a diverting sense of the farce inherent in families. Long Island Compromise left this reader wondering: does its author really think that rich American Jews are that bad, or are the Fletchers a one-off?
Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for generously providing me with an advanced readering copy in exchange for my review.
3.5 stars, rounded to 4
Long Island Compromise ranges from slapstick tropes to occasional attempts to more deeply communicate the intergenerational dynamics of American Eastern European Judaism. It’s a rough road that Long Island Compromise goes down, and it’s sometimes unclear just what Brodesser-Akner intended. Not being able to suss this out, it’s often difficult to find one’s bearings: is Long Island Compromise a comedy, a farce, a family melodrama, or a more serious look into the functioning and disintegration of one once successful American Jewish immigrant family? Brodesser-Akner can be humorous, with her humor filled with snark: ”’You know what happens when you marry a young shiksa?’. . . ‘You end up with an old goya.’ He still didn’t totally understand what that meant, but he thought about it constantly.” Brodesser-Akner’s own attitudes towards her characters seem mixed at best: ”The Fletchers were gone for good now, and we never had to hear their terrible name again.”
Despite the craven unpleasantness of the Fletchers, Long Island Compromise holds some pleasures. Brodesser-Akner has a dab hand with quickly sketched cutting portraits and a diverting sense of the farce inherent in families. Long Island Compromise left this reader wondering: does its author really think that rich American Jews are that bad, or are the Fletchers a one-off?
Thanks to Random House and NetGalley for generously providing me with an advanced readering copy in exchange for my review.
3.5 stars, rounded to 4
July 26, 2024
This was not the book I thought it was going to be. The writing feels gimmicky with all the ‘CUT TOs’ and authorial intrusion. A struggle to read almost from the beginning, I only managed to finish because I hoped at some point it would improve and because I was sure that the person behind the kidnapping was close to home. Sure, we’re supposed to dislike the characters, hate them even, but just when you think no one could be worse than pathetic ‘Beamer’, we meet insufferable Jenny. And really, what’s the point? A tedious and ultimately unsatisfying read. Pass.
June 30, 2024
This novel begins with a bang and never lets up, beginning with a prelude documenting the kidnapping of the head of a family-owned factory. The story then delves into the lives of his children, one of whom isn't even born at the time, but the crime itself was so traumatizing it became fused into the DNA of everyone involved. In this further excursion into contemporary Jewish life, Taffy Brodesser-Akner plumbs the depths of wealth, privilege, questioning through the characters whether extreme wealth is a burden or a blessing. Her facility with language is paramount, her characters, relatable, and the situations believable. Written in a style that almost feels as if you're hearing it from a resident of the (fictitious, wealthy) Middle Rock community on Long Island.
Shelved as 'did-not-finish'
August 6, 2024It got recalled to the library when I was about 1/3 of the way through, and I'm not at all sad about that.
July 8, 2024
Filled the Succession-shaped hole in my life.
July 22, 2024
Yawn. Unlikable characters and so so bland.
May 24, 2024
My only complaint is that this book wasn’t 10 times longer. Taffy is such a creative master: wordsmith, character development, narrative. Each page is a brilliant gift.
July 19, 2024
Long Island Compromise, Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new work (her last novel was the very popular Fleishman is in Trouble) follows the fortunes of the wealthy Fletcher family, including their intergenerational trauma. The story begins with a trauma and then moves backward and forward tracing other trauma that echo and reflect off each other.
Brodesser-Akner is a comic writer who vividly depicts dysfunctional and wealthy families (a very niche genre I think). She writes in broad strokes, in fact I feel somewhat battered when reading her. But her vivid and energetic writing helps compensate for the unlikability of her characters. There is a great deal of humor and some compassion in the portrayal of these unhappy people (who in their turn create misery in and for others). Hers is not a kind of humor that appeals to me, caricature and ridicule, but she makes it work, even for me.
Amongst other things, Brodesser-Akner portrays how wealth is created (in this case, by a poor Polish Jew who escaped the Nazis) and then passed down, taken for granted, and ultimately dissipated by succeeding generations. It is also a biting (and negative) portrayal of affluent Jewish families living in the wealthiest communities in Long Island. But these are not people desperately trying to assimilate—they are proud of their heritage and determined to carry it on, still remembering the shadow of the Nazis (personified in their grandfather—who also represents their pride in his escape, a memory which empowers but also intimidates his descendants).
Beamer is the self-absorbed son married to the gentile Noelle (a fact which his mother takes as a personal blow). He alternates between grandiosity and self-abasement (as vividly depicted in his sexual practices—not, of course, with well-bred Noelle). He is as unlikable as he is (because of Brodesser-Akner’s writing) mesmerizing.
I found some sections of the book difficult to stomach and at the same time hilarious. There were times I was overwhelmed with how unlikable/pathetic the characters were, filled with distaste or pity (more often, however, distaste). There were other times I was too busy laughing to think of anything else.
In summary, Long Island Compromise is a powerfully written comic view of the effects of wealth on families, intergenerational trauma, and the life of affluent Jews in the United States (well, more specifically, on Long Island). It is a work well worth reading--despite the fact that I personally have little interest in the problems of the wealthy, and in particular in the pain that having too much money creates, Brodesser-Akner kept me engaged. And again it is a testament to her talent and craft that I was able to stay with the deeply unlikable characters that populate this book.
Thanks to Random House and NetGalley as well as the author for generously providing me with an advanced copy of the book in exchange for my review.
Brodesser-Akner is a comic writer who vividly depicts dysfunctional and wealthy families (a very niche genre I think). She writes in broad strokes, in fact I feel somewhat battered when reading her. But her vivid and energetic writing helps compensate for the unlikability of her characters. There is a great deal of humor and some compassion in the portrayal of these unhappy people (who in their turn create misery in and for others). Hers is not a kind of humor that appeals to me, caricature and ridicule, but she makes it work, even for me.
Amongst other things, Brodesser-Akner portrays how wealth is created (in this case, by a poor Polish Jew who escaped the Nazis) and then passed down, taken for granted, and ultimately dissipated by succeeding generations. It is also a biting (and negative) portrayal of affluent Jewish families living in the wealthiest communities in Long Island. But these are not people desperately trying to assimilate—they are proud of their heritage and determined to carry it on, still remembering the shadow of the Nazis (personified in their grandfather—who also represents their pride in his escape, a memory which empowers but also intimidates his descendants).
Beamer is the self-absorbed son married to the gentile Noelle (a fact which his mother takes as a personal blow). He alternates between grandiosity and self-abasement (as vividly depicted in his sexual practices—not, of course, with well-bred Noelle). He is as unlikable as he is (because of Brodesser-Akner’s writing) mesmerizing.
I found some sections of the book difficult to stomach and at the same time hilarious. There were times I was overwhelmed with how unlikable/pathetic the characters were, filled with distaste or pity (more often, however, distaste). There were other times I was too busy laughing to think of anything else.
In summary, Long Island Compromise is a powerfully written comic view of the effects of wealth on families, intergenerational trauma, and the life of affluent Jews in the United States (well, more specifically, on Long Island). It is a work well worth reading--despite the fact that I personally have little interest in the problems of the wealthy, and in particular in the pain that having too much money creates, Brodesser-Akner kept me engaged. And again it is a testament to her talent and craft that I was able to stay with the deeply unlikable characters that populate this book.
Thanks to Random House and NetGalley as well as the author for generously providing me with an advanced copy of the book in exchange for my review.
July 17, 2024
How could I not give a novel about Long Island five stars? A novel about the area I have lived my whole life in close proximity to, no less?
I honest to god could not put this book down, wolfing it down in two days (the last two nights I sat down to read a few pages around 11 and was absorbed until past 3).
I haven’t read like that in forever. The collapse of each of the Fletcher children’s lives was so entertaining, and as much as I wanted them to dig deep and overcome their predicaments, it was so clear that they were not apt to do so. It was plain fun to read, and I didn’t even care that they suffer few consequences in the end — their plight was too entertaining for me to care. Yes, there were points where the children’s idiosyncrasies became too potent and eclipsed their believability (especially with Nathan), but I couldn’t help but enjoy it.
I get that I’m predisposed to enjoy this far more than the average reader. She’s writing about my backyard and some of the people I went to school with. I had my own Fletcher children to refer back to as I read, wondering if they’ll end up this way in middle age. I could not get enough of her thoughts on the landscape, especially her criticism of the monstrosities they’re putting up in some of these neighborhoods — “The Craftsmans and Colonials and Federalists and Tudors of his youth were still there, but every third one had been razed to make way for something that looked like either a Frankenstein of architectural indecision or an effigy of an important building in another country: a huge expanse of a house that looked like an Italian palazzo or an English castle or the Taj Mahal or a Spanish villa made by someone who had only heard of those things but had never actually seen them. Or a mixed-media half-Tudor half-midcentury-modern disaster complete with a Texan ziggurat and a turret that made no sense.” God, it’s too true.
Reading her author’s note in which she claims that her characters are entirely fictional, I was reminded of one of my favorite episodes of Murder, She Wrote, “The Sins of Castle Cove.” Jessica’s former student writes a bestseller and very quickly, Cabot Cove realizes that all of the characters are loose caricatures of themselves. Chaos and murder ensue and the gossipy women at the beauty parlor deny their unmistakable traits that some of the book’s characters happen to possess. It’s fantastic. I’m sure that the residents of Akner’s childhood community will react similarly to this book. This type of family and their wealth are distinct to this area; she did not conjure them out of a vacuum.
I honest to god could not put this book down, wolfing it down in two days (the last two nights I sat down to read a few pages around 11 and was absorbed until past 3).
I haven’t read like that in forever. The collapse of each of the Fletcher children’s lives was so entertaining, and as much as I wanted them to dig deep and overcome their predicaments, it was so clear that they were not apt to do so. It was plain fun to read, and I didn’t even care that they suffer few consequences in the end — their plight was too entertaining for me to care. Yes, there were points where the children’s idiosyncrasies became too potent and eclipsed their believability (especially with Nathan), but I couldn’t help but enjoy it.
I get that I’m predisposed to enjoy this far more than the average reader. She’s writing about my backyard and some of the people I went to school with. I had my own Fletcher children to refer back to as I read, wondering if they’ll end up this way in middle age. I could not get enough of her thoughts on the landscape, especially her criticism of the monstrosities they’re putting up in some of these neighborhoods — “The Craftsmans and Colonials and Federalists and Tudors of his youth were still there, but every third one had been razed to make way for something that looked like either a Frankenstein of architectural indecision or an effigy of an important building in another country: a huge expanse of a house that looked like an Italian palazzo or an English castle or the Taj Mahal or a Spanish villa made by someone who had only heard of those things but had never actually seen them. Or a mixed-media half-Tudor half-midcentury-modern disaster complete with a Texan ziggurat and a turret that made no sense.” God, it’s too true.
Reading her author’s note in which she claims that her characters are entirely fictional, I was reminded of one of my favorite episodes of Murder, She Wrote, “The Sins of Castle Cove.” Jessica’s former student writes a bestseller and very quickly, Cabot Cove realizes that all of the characters are loose caricatures of themselves. Chaos and murder ensue and the gossipy women at the beauty parlor deny their unmistakable traits that some of the book’s characters happen to possess. It’s fantastic. I’m sure that the residents of Akner’s childhood community will react similarly to this book. This type of family and their wealth are distinct to this area; she did not conjure them out of a vacuum.
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