'Is this book as good [as Fleishman]? It's better' THE NEW YORK TIMES'Might be a masterpiece' HUGH LAURIE'The best book I've read this year' HARLAN COBEN
'Very, very good' ELIZABETH DAY'The book of the summer, nay, the year' DAVID SEDARIS'This book is DYNAMITE. Inhaled it in two sittings' CAITLIN MORAN'Shocking, tender, profound and delicious' EMILY MAITLIS
'Lavishly comic' THE TIMES'A lip-smacking tale' GUARDIAN'Elegant and devastating' FINANCIAL TIMESFrom the
Sunday Times bestselling author of
Fleishman Is in Trouble comes
a darkly exhilarating novel about an American family and its inheritance - the safety and wealth that they fought for, and the precarity of their survival that is their legacy. In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway in the nicest part of the nicest part of Long Island. He is brutalised, held for ransom and then returned to his family. Miraculously, Carl, his wife and his three kids are left to move on with their lives, and resume their prized places in the ongoing saga of the American dream.
But nearly forty years later, when Carl's mother dies, the trauma that has been bubbling beneath the Fletchers' lives all this time surfaces at last. It becomes apparent that Carl has been quietly pursuing closure to the kidnapping for all these years, and his wife and children must face that the money that they believed bought them safety was actually never capable of doing any such thing.
Long Island Compromise spans generations, winding through decades of history all the way through to the wild present, dealing along the way with all the mainstays of American Jewish life and the timeless questions about wealth, trauma, and the American soul.
MORE PRAISE FOR LONG ISLAND COMPROMISE:'The status book you'll want to be seen with' STYLIST'[A] scabrous satire' THE NEW YORKER'This author's talents are boundless' LA TIMES'Substantive and profound' CATHY RENTZENBRINK'Greatness so often comes at the expense of what is enjoyable. Long Island Compromise is both, and then some' IPAPER'Exuberant and absorbing' ATLANTICPRAISE FOR FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE:'
There is no one that this book isn't for . . . Pure brilliance' INDIA KNIGHT, THE SUNDAY TIMES'Could be one of the books of my entire lifetime. I've never felt so seen' GRACE DENT, GUARDIAN'Sharp and wicked, insightful and funny, and then suddenly so touching' DAVID NICHOL
Industry Reviews
A lip-smacking tale of family, wealth and self-destruction told with relish - Guardian
An ambitious, funny family drama . . .
Lavishly comic - The Times
Elegant and devastating . . . A rich, stylish, moving and funny novel . . . Every reader will find something here that they can recognise, that will resonate and endure - Financial Times
Is this book as good [as Fleishman]? It's better. Sprawling yet nimble, this is her Big American Reform Jewish Novel . . . All those well-timed twists, neat callbacks and tidy scenes are a mitzvah for
this satisfying, touching novel. The talented Taffy Brodesser-Akner over here - The New York Times
Brodesser-Akner had me at "hello" with this opening line from her
raucous and ravishing Long Island Compromise, an epic family saga that joins the ranks of such great American novels as
The Corrections and
Middlesex . . . This author's talents are boundless . . . A humane, brazen, gorgeous novel whose words dance exuberantly on the page - Los Angeles Times
[A] scabrous satire of the super-rich . . . Brodesser-Akner is a keen observer of class aspiration as a survival method. - The New Yorker
The pleasure of Brodesser-Akner's writing is her ability to make us consider a weighty subject in a way that feels thrillingly original . . .
Greatness comes so often at the expense of what is enjoyable. Long Island Compromise is both, and then some - iPaper
Not gonna sugarcoat this:
Long Island Compromise is the best book I've read this year. You do not want to miss it
