Feature writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner broke into the literary scene with her modern marriage drama Fleishman is in Trouble. That book, which explored the breakdown of a marriage from a number of perspectives went on to also be successfully adapted for TV. Her new novel Long Island Compromise, moves out of the city, but like Fleishman, focusses on the American Jewish community and experience. Although in this case, Brodesser-Akner focusses on the lives of the ultra-wealthy.
There are two defining stories in the Fletcher family of Long Island. The first is how grandfather Zelig managed to flee the Nazis and come to America clutching the formula for polystyrene, bestowed on him by a dying man and how he leveraged that formula into a successful factory. The second, and more immediate, is the kidnapping in 1980 of Carl, Zelig’s son and father of Nathan, Bernard and (soon after) Jenny. After an excruciating few days, the family paid the ransom and Carl was returned but this traumatic event echoes through the family.
The narrative of Long Island Compromise revolves around the three Fletcher children, forty years on. All are basket cases in their own way, harking back to the kidnapping and its impact on their childhoods and development. But Brodesser-Akner does not let them off the hook that easily. What really underpins the Fletcher’s malaise is the regular, unearned money that they receive from the factory. And it is only when this money tap is turned off that they really start to go off the rails.
Fair warning: not one character of Long Island Compromise is likeable, or sympathetic. This is mainly due to the way they behave but it is clear that the unnamed narrator (or narrators? – it is hard to tell just who is telling this story or why) doesn’t really like them either. And Brodesser-Akner’s prose is incredibly detailed. Which makes spending time with these characters an exhausting and seemingly futile exercise.
The whole enterprise builds up to what is supposed to be game changing reveals. Unfortunately, the twists and reveals when they finally come are neither particularly revelatory or make a lot of sense. And to bring home Brodesser-Akner’s main thesis, don’t actually make a lot of difference to the lives of the spoilt narcissists at the centre of this narrative.
Long Island Compromise follows an American literary tradition of dense, highly observational, social satire. And in its narrow focus and range it is very American, or more precisely, very East Coast, upper class, Jewish American. Peopled by unlikeable characters it confuses shrillness, antic behaviour, literary sarcasm and snide observation for comedy. And spends an inordinately long time coming to the unsurprising conclusion that no matter what happens the rich can weather anything usually by climbing over those less wealthy than themselves. Other authors have done this better, more subtly and more enjoyably.
Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
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