Long Island Compromise

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR:
The New York Times Book Review, Oprah Daily, The New Yorker, Time, The Washington Post, NPR, Vogue, Town & Country, New York Post, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Parade, Kirkus Reviews

In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, beaten, and ransomed. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, and the family moves on, comforted in the realization that if their money was what endangered them, it is also what assured their safety.

But forty years later, it’s clear that nobody ever got over anything, after all. Carl has secretly sought closure for decades, 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 anxiety keeps him from advancing at his law firm; Beamer, a Hollywood screenwriter, will consume anything—drugs, food, women—to numb his terror; and Jenny is so bent on proving that she’s not a product of her family’s pathology that she has come to define it. When they learn that the family fortune has dwindled to just about nothing, they must face questions about the part wealth has played in their lives’ successes and failures and confront the trauma that has stunted each of them.

With depth and surprising hilarity, Long Island Compromise winds through one family’s history, all the way to the outrageous present, confronting the mainstays of American Jewish life: tradition, the pursuit of success, the terror of history, old wives’ tales, evil eyes, achievement, boredom, pyramid schemes, right-wing capitalists, beta blockers, and the mostly unspoken love and shared experience that unite a family forever.

“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

“An outlandish, rollicking family saga” —ELLE

"Relatable but never dull . . . Brodesser-Akner, who twists her knife with more relish, begins with actual crisis (a mysterious kidnapping and release), then leaps to the surprising ways it stamps fear into each member of the wealthy family.” —Chicago Tribune

"In her savage, hilarious follow-up to Fleishman Is in Trouble, Brodesser-Akner takes on capitalism, wealth and generational trauma through a sharp satiric lens. Brodesser-Akner’s commentary about affluence and its effects resonates.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Another tale of modern neuroses, told with bombastic appeal . . . I can’t think of another living writer better at crafting tales of acute and searing pathos, all while pleasing readers in the process.” —Vogue

“Funny, raunchy and very, very Long Island.” —Newsday

“The wizard Weisenheimer behind Fleishman Is in Trouble is back with a big, juicy, wickedly funny social satire. . . . As weird as this may sound—Brodesser-Akner has written probably the funniest book ever about generational family trauma.” —Oprah Daily

“Readers will get lost and found in its universe of wealth, family, faith, and other fallible securities.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Brodesser-Akner’s latest combines the smarts of Sarah Silverman’s stand-up, the polymath verisimilitude of Tom Wolfe’s novels, and the Jewish soul of Sholem Aleichem’s stories. This is a comedic feast.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Generational trauma has never been so funny as when Brodesser-Akner writes it. This book is a must-read for those who like witty, observational novels, family sagas, and sharp dialogue and characterization.” —Library Journal, starred review