Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s debut novel Fleishman Is in Trouble was a fine balance between commercial and literary fiction that made it a New York Times bestseller and a hit TV show starring Claire Danes and Jessie Eisenberg. It was smart and zeitgeisty, and dealt with the pressures of marriage and parenthood in the late-capitalist United States.
Five years on, Brodesser-Akner is back with her second novel. On the surface, Long Island Compromise does everything the follow-up to a hit debut novel should do. It is told in the same smart style as Fleishman, and its wealthy, dysfunctional Jewish family works as a neat metaphor for the decline and fall of American capitalism. If I was reading it on a sun lounger, I’d say it did a great job. But in the context of Brodesser-Akner’s calibre both as an author and New York Times journalist, this second book feels like a calculated safe play. It won’t do her any harm, but it might not do her any favours either.
The basic set-up of the book is this: in 1980, wealthy factory owner and styrofoam-mould producer Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his home. A week later he is returned to his family after a huge ransom is paid. (In an author’s note, Brodesser-Akner explains that the idea for the novel was inspired by the real-life Long Island kidnapping of Jack Teich in 1974.) Carl is physically unharmed after the kidnapping, but he develops PTSD, and the psychological trauma plays out in his marriage and his children’s lives over the following decades.
Fast-forward 40 years and Carl’s mother, Phylis, the family matriarch, has just died. Carl’s wife, Ruth, has sacrificed her life to look after her husband and is disappointed in her entitled adult children – Beamer, Nathan and Jenny. All three are in a state of arrested development. Beamer is an addict and failed screenwriter, who keeps weekly appointments with a dominatrix (he tells his wife he is visiting his therapist).
Meanwhile, his wife is coping by visiting an overpriced tarot reader and injecting her face with fillers. Nathan is a neurotic catastrophist who works in planning law for his uncle’s law firm because that way he can avoid dealing directly with clients. His wife is obsessed with renovating their kitchen with money she thinks they have. The youngest child, Jenny, organises unions at a university campus and is repelled by her family and their wealth. She gives most of her money away to good causes safe in the knowledge that there will always be another payment next quarter.
After Phylis’s death, the money suddenly stops, the accountant disappears, and the family reaches a long-overdue crisis point.
The book seems to get in its own way for the first 100 pages or so, with long, repetitive sentences and a lot of backstory that slows down the pace
Brodesser-Akner easily fits into the lineage of watchful American writers such as Tom Wolfe, Philip Roth and John Updike in the way that she analyses contemporary American society through the issues she explores. These include inherited trauma and inherited wealth, the decline and fall of the American dream and the American family, the immigrant experience, capitalism, socialism, religion, secularism, employment ethics, entitlement, how corporations destroy small businesses and small communities and how morally corrupt lawyers dance through the loopholes.
While that might sound heavy, there is a lot of levity in the individual characters’ self-delusions and the family dynamics, along with the different outlooks of the three generations. There is darkness too in the historical story of Carl’s late father, Zelig, who fled Europe for the United States. The book is structurally unusual, zooming in and out on individual characters before returning to the central action. As a result, we approach the climax of the story like a swinging pendulum rather than in the usual linear way, which is enjoyable.
In a recent interview with Publisher’s Weekly, Brodesser-Akner revealed she had written 70 pages of this book but her then-agent didn’t like it much so she switched and started writing what would become Fleishman. When lockdown hit, Brodesser-Akner returned to Long Island Compromise. Perhaps that is why the book can feel a little unbalanced at times. It seems to get in its own way for the first 100 pages or so, with long, repetitive sentences and a lot of backstory that slows down the pace. On the other hand, the ending feels unnecessarily rushed and the opportune return of a minor character feels outrageously convenient.
But none of this is unforgivable. For the most part this is a very entertaining and smart novel, and a great summer read. If you loved Fleishman, as I did, you’ll like this.
