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Long Island Compromise
In 1980 a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway in a cloistered town on the nicest part of Long Island, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly worse for wear, and the family begins the hard work of moving on with their lives. They resume their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that although their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what ensured their safety. But nearly forty years later, when Carl’s mother dies and the family comes home to mourn her, it becomes clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published July 9, 2024
About the author
Taffy Brodesser-Akner
8 books1,496 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 327 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 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!
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
July 14, 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.
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 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
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?
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.
May 26, 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 that comes out on July 9.
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.
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 21, 2024
Honestly could have used more *n*l sex
July 8, 2024
Long Island Compromise
By Taffy Brodesser-Akner
When Carl returns, battered, bruised and disorientated a week after he is kidnapped from his driveway, causing unbelievable stress to his pregnant wife and two young sons, his mother Phyllis grabs him by the shoulders, looks into his eyes and says: " Listen to me Boychick. This happened to your body. This did not happen to you. Don't let it in."
This is the story of what became of Carl's family following his ordeal in 1980's Long Island, how Phyllis' uncompromising personality and her Jewish stoicism came to bear on how the Fletcher family went about their business. The business of maintaining the wealthy and privileged life that Phyllis' ruthless and ambitious immigrant husband carved out, and the business of raising kids so as not to allow their father's trauma to identity them.
The story is told is from different perspectives. First from Beamer, who was only a toddler when his mother Ruth brought him along on the ransom drop to secure the release of his father. Now a scriptwriter in LA, his sexual proclivities and drug abuse are the only way he can function. Honestly, I found this section so uncomfortable to read. I could have DNFed, but I suspected the perspective would change, and thankfully it did, to Nathan, the eldest son, the pride of the family because he does everything the family expect of him, but he's a kowtower, spineless and easily manipulated. His life is also a car crash, it just hasn't impacted yet. Then there's Jenny, she wasn't even born yet when Carl's ordeal was playing out, but she is also struggling with the fallout of their family situation through a combination of rejection of family ideals, shame of her inherited privilege and the skewed dynamics of a family whose trauma is stringently unacknowledged and deeply unresolved.
Once I got through Beamer's section of this novel it was unputdownable. Don't skip that bit, it's important to the overall story. If you read "Fleishman is in Trouble" you will recognise Brodesser-Akner's searing and witty style immediately. Her use of perspective is unflinching and she brings you into the mindset of people who you will struggle to like or empathise with until finally, finally their humanity and their vulnerability is revealed and their jigsaw piece in the family puzzle falls into place.
Coming from a recent disappointment by another long anticipated sophomore family saga, this was an unexpected hit for me. I read it surprisingly quickly despite the long chapters and initial ambivalence. I would really be interested to see if this gets picked up for TV seeing as Fleishman was so successful. Always fun to imagine who would play who.
Publication date: 9th July 2024
Thanks to #NetGalley and #headlinebooks for the eGalley
By Taffy Brodesser-Akner
When Carl returns, battered, bruised and disorientated a week after he is kidnapped from his driveway, causing unbelievable stress to his pregnant wife and two young sons, his mother Phyllis grabs him by the shoulders, looks into his eyes and says: " Listen to me Boychick. This happened to your body. This did not happen to you. Don't let it in."
This is the story of what became of Carl's family following his ordeal in 1980's Long Island, how Phyllis' uncompromising personality and her Jewish stoicism came to bear on how the Fletcher family went about their business. The business of maintaining the wealthy and privileged life that Phyllis' ruthless and ambitious immigrant husband carved out, and the business of raising kids so as not to allow their father's trauma to identity them.
The story is told is from different perspectives. First from Beamer, who was only a toddler when his mother Ruth brought him along on the ransom drop to secure the release of his father. Now a scriptwriter in LA, his sexual proclivities and drug abuse are the only way he can function. Honestly, I found this section so uncomfortable to read. I could have DNFed, but I suspected the perspective would change, and thankfully it did, to Nathan, the eldest son, the pride of the family because he does everything the family expect of him, but he's a kowtower, spineless and easily manipulated. His life is also a car crash, it just hasn't impacted yet. Then there's Jenny, she wasn't even born yet when Carl's ordeal was playing out, but she is also struggling with the fallout of their family situation through a combination of rejection of family ideals, shame of her inherited privilege and the skewed dynamics of a family whose trauma is stringently unacknowledged and deeply unresolved.
Once I got through Beamer's section of this novel it was unputdownable. Don't skip that bit, it's important to the overall story. If you read "Fleishman is in Trouble" you will recognise Brodesser-Akner's searing and witty style immediately. Her use of perspective is unflinching and she brings you into the mindset of people who you will struggle to like or empathise with until finally, finally their humanity and their vulnerability is revealed and their jigsaw piece in the family puzzle falls into place.
Coming from a recent disappointment by another long anticipated sophomore family saga, this was an unexpected hit for me. I read it surprisingly quickly despite the long chapters and initial ambivalence. I would really be interested to see if this gets picked up for TV seeing as Fleishman was so successful. Always fun to imagine who would play who.
Publication date: 9th July 2024
Thanks to #NetGalley and #headlinebooks for the eGalley
July 8, 2024
Filled the Succession-shaped hole in my life.
April 14, 2024
“Long Island Compromise” begins with the kidnapping of Carl Fletcher from his grand estate in Long Island, where he runs a styrofoam factory founded by his father, a Polish Jewish immigrant. At the time of the kidnapping, he had two sons, Nathan, 8 years old, and Bernard (“Beamer”), 6 years old, and a pregnant wife. After his wife, Ruth, delivered the ransom a week later, he was released but his life and those of his family would never be the same. His children, including Jenny, the daughter born several months after the kidnapping, grew up to be under performing anxious people.
The book is divided into sections focusing on the life of each of the three children and Ruth. The chapters consisted mostly of long, meandering, stream of consciousness internal monologues of each of the characters with an occasional bit of dialog thrown in to break up the tedium of the narrative. I found this narrative style detracted from the story and bogged it down into unnecessary detail. In fact, I was so bored that if I hadn’t received an ARC of the novel and felt compelled to finish it as a result, I would have DNF’d this book at 10%.
I may be in the minority in preferring books with dialog and less “telling,” because otherwise the book could have been interesting. The characters were well-drawn and when there was interaction and dialog the story was less dull and slow moving. And the premise, that the children were dysfunctional, not just because of their father’s kidnapping but because of their life of privilege without responsibility or hardship, was well established by the storyline.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for providing an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.
The book is divided into sections focusing on the life of each of the three children and Ruth. The chapters consisted mostly of long, meandering, stream of consciousness internal monologues of each of the characters with an occasional bit of dialog thrown in to break up the tedium of the narrative. I found this narrative style detracted from the story and bogged it down into unnecessary detail. In fact, I was so bored that if I hadn’t received an ARC of the novel and felt compelled to finish it as a result, I would have DNF’d this book at 10%.
I may be in the minority in preferring books with dialog and less “telling,” because otherwise the book could have been interesting. The characters were well-drawn and when there was interaction and dialog the story was less dull and slow moving. And the premise, that the children were dysfunctional, not just because of their father’s kidnapping but because of their life of privilege without responsibility or hardship, was well established by the storyline.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for providing an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.
April 2, 2024
ARC for review. To be published July 9, 2024.
In 1988 wealthy businessman Carl Fletcher was kidnapped from the driveway of his impressive home and held for nearly a week. Afterward he and his family move on with their lives.
But forty years later the Fletcher family is still trying to come to terms with the way the kidnapping and the reasons behind it impacted them. Carl cannot get closure and sleepwalks through life. His wife, Ruth spends her life coddling Carl. Son Nathan, a lawyer, suffers from chronic fear. Son Beamer, a screenwriter, is an addict and uses drugs, food and women to numb himself. Daughter Jenny has long tried to distance herself from everything her family is about. Can the family members get out from under the shadows of the kidnapping and the wealth that led to it?
I really enjoyed this book. The author did a great job with a fairly large cast of characters, nearly all of whom were problematic in some way. Great sense of both place and time, and if the argument is made that, with the boys, these are cliches, well, they are cliches for a reason. Highly recommended to those who enjoy books about family and money, and how the two mix.
In 1988 wealthy businessman Carl Fletcher was kidnapped from the driveway of his impressive home and held for nearly a week. Afterward he and his family move on with their lives.
But forty years later the Fletcher family is still trying to come to terms with the way the kidnapping and the reasons behind it impacted them. Carl cannot get closure and sleepwalks through life. His wife, Ruth spends her life coddling Carl. Son Nathan, a lawyer, suffers from chronic fear. Son Beamer, a screenwriter, is an addict and uses drugs, food and women to numb himself. Daughter Jenny has long tried to distance herself from everything her family is about. Can the family members get out from under the shadows of the kidnapping and the wealth that led to it?
I really enjoyed this book. The author did a great job with a fairly large cast of characters, nearly all of whom were problematic in some way. Great sense of both place and time, and if the argument is made that, with the boys, these are cliches, well, they are cliches for a reason. Highly recommended to those who enjoy books about family and money, and how the two mix.
July 18, 2024
The whole universe lines itself up to make a family, and the family takes it from there.
Long Island Compromise begins, propulsively, with the kidnapping of Carl Fletcher from his driveway in March of 1980. Despite being returned to his family a week later, Carl is forever altered by the experience -- and so are the people that love him most. Taffy Brodesser-Akner's sprawling Jewish-American family saga explores the myriad ways the Fletcher family never got over the kidnapping of their patriarch.
Not everyone is going to enjoy Long Island Compromise, and I can totally understand why. This is an in-your-face, unsubtle, explicit book about wealthy, unlikable characters complaining about the fact that they are wealthy, engaging in a variety of self-sabotage methods, and refusing to acknowledge their trauma. But because Brodesser-Akner is a hugely talented writer, and because I'm all about an in-depth character study, I was absolutely captivated by the stories of their lives. These characters, unlikable though they may be on the surface, are rendered with such authenticity and vulnerability that I felt for them deeply, even as I was horrified by their actions.
Long Island Compromise made me cringe, laugh, and cry -- sometimes all in the same paragraph. It's a compelling, complex story about the corruption and comfort of inherited wealth, the harsh realities of inherited trauma, and all the ways families heal and destroy each other -- set against the backdrop of a predominantly Jewish Long Island town that almost becomes a character in and of itself. Reading Long Island Compromise wasn't always a pleasant experience, but it was a rewarding one, and by the end I found myself truly affected by it. Thank you to Random House for the complimentary reading opportunity.
March 26, 2024
(4.5/5)
Exquisite. In just two novels, Taffy Brodesser-Akner has already established herself as the master of novels where nothing much "happens," but are so well written and engaging that you can't help but tear through them regardless. It's nothing short of a miracle that a novel which is largely focused on generational/inherited trauma is also frequently hilarious, an amazing balancing act that is pulled off with the utmost ease here. My only real complaint is that there are no more novels by Taffy Brodesser-Ackner available to read immediately.
Exquisite. In just two novels, Taffy Brodesser-Akner has already established herself as the master of novels where nothing much "happens," but are so well written and engaging that you can't help but tear through them regardless. It's nothing short of a miracle that a novel which is largely focused on generational/inherited trauma is also frequently hilarious, an amazing balancing act that is pulled off with the utmost ease here. My only real complaint is that there are no more novels by Taffy Brodesser-Ackner available to read immediately.
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.
Read
April 15, 2024DNF after 10%.
July 22, 2024
Yawn. Unlikable characters and so so bland.
July 17, 2024
I loved this book.
Imagine Nora Ephron took Philip Roth’s ‘American pastoral’, but updated it, moved it to Long Island and added her witty, light-touch.
At 446 pages, you’d think this would be a slog - not true. I just couldn’t get enough.
Brilliant.
Imagine Nora Ephron took Philip Roth’s ‘American pastoral’, but updated it, moved it to Long Island and added her witty, light-touch.
At 446 pages, you’d think this would be a slog - not true. I just couldn’t get enough.
Brilliant.
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.
May 31, 2024
I was fortunate to receive an ARC for this highly anticipated sophomore novel. Long Island Compromise follows the Fletcher family, wealthy Jews living in an upscale Long Island town. In 1980, patriarch Carl is kidnapped, forever altering their lives. Despite his return after a ransom payment, the trauma lingers, impacting each family member over the next 40 years. Taffy Brodesser-Akner skillfully develops flawed yet multi-dimensional characters, adding depth to the story. (Caveat: If you're not into flawed characters or character-driven plots, especially from privileged backgrounds, you might find this story frustrating)
The narrative unfolds through the viewpoints of three Jewish adult children who uncover the family's financial constraints. The author provides insight into the generational ascent to wealth and its repercussions. Each character is vividly portrayed with their own distinct lives, emotions, and the difficult decisions they must confront.
I appreciated the depiction of American Jewish life and how its traditions are woven into every aspect of this story, providing insight into the culture and the pressures that the children face. It embraces stereotypical characteristics of Jewish families, but with a touch of lightheartedness.
My only criticism is its length—feeling at least 100 pages too long, particularly in the initial character introductions. However, the pace picks up in the second half making it more compelling. Overall, I enjoyed it; it's a poignant portrayal of how a tragic event can deeply affect a family for years to come and also how great wealth could be a burden to the children of those who accumulated the wealth. I found the book to be thought-provoking, as it raises questions about the impact of inheriting wealth and the resulting drive for success in subsequent generations. Each new generation aims to surpass the last, but would those who've benefited from the wealth feel the same motivation? Thanks to Hachette Australia& New Zealand and NetGalley for the advanced reading copy!
The narrative unfolds through the viewpoints of three Jewish adult children who uncover the family's financial constraints. The author provides insight into the generational ascent to wealth and its repercussions. Each character is vividly portrayed with their own distinct lives, emotions, and the difficult decisions they must confront.
I appreciated the depiction of American Jewish life and how its traditions are woven into every aspect of this story, providing insight into the culture and the pressures that the children face. It embraces stereotypical characteristics of Jewish families, but with a touch of lightheartedness.
My only criticism is its length—feeling at least 100 pages too long, particularly in the initial character introductions. However, the pace picks up in the second half making it more compelling. Overall, I enjoyed it; it's a poignant portrayal of how a tragic event can deeply affect a family for years to come and also how great wealth could be a burden to the children of those who accumulated the wealth. I found the book to be thought-provoking, as it raises questions about the impact of inheriting wealth and the resulting drive for success in subsequent generations. Each new generation aims to surpass the last, but would those who've benefited from the wealth feel the same motivation? Thanks to Hachette Australia& New Zealand and NetGalley for the advanced reading copy!
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