Long Island Compromise

★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10

480 pages

What’s it about?

This novel takes place on Long Island in the wealthy Jewish enclave of Middle Rock. In 1980, Carl Fletcher is kidnapped and held for ransom for five days.  A ransom is paid, and he is released.  Forty years later it is clear that the family never recovered from this trauma.

What did it make me think about?

The dangers of generational wealth vs the dangers of no wealth at all... "In her own house, the money sat with them at the dinner table, then watched TV with them in the living room, and part of what made the Fletchers boring and dumb, in her opinion, was that they never talked about it.  They never talked about what all this money did to them, how it made them look to others, or how it felt for them to have it, how they behaved because of it. The Fletchers may not have been the only wealthy family in town, but the majority of the people they dealt with were not as wealthy as they were, and wasn't it true that it seemed like people were always thinking about it when they looked at them, like the Fletchers were a Christmas ham with all the fixings in a Bugs Bunny cartoon?"

Should I read it?

Taffy Brodesser-Akner writes a sprawling, funny, sad story about a Jewish-American family and their struggles with generational wealth.  Make no mistake, this story is all about money and safety (and does money really make you safe...).This novel is not for the faint of heart- after all, the title refers to anal sex, and one of the main characters is caught up in sadomasochism, so read this with a warning.  I'm unsure what it says about me, but I liked this book. I enjoyed this novel in the same way I enjoy a Jonathan Franzen novel- I just sit back and see where these kooky characters will lead me.  The Fletchers were at times tiresome, but usually pretty interesting, and what a topic to explore.  Don't most people assume they would be happy if they just had more?

A passage I marked

" 'I think that every family is its own bible story.  Every family is its own mythology.  The people that were written about in the Torah- that's just a document from a period of time.  If the Torah had gone on, perhaps we'd all be included in it.  Perhaps there would be a book of the Fletcher's.' "