Name: Fleishman Is in Trouble
Rating: 3.865740740740741 (108 reviews)
ISBN: 9781472267078

Taffy Brodesser-akner

A Novel

Fleishman Is in Trouble

These questions weren't really about him; no, they were questions about how perceptive people were and what they missed and who else was about to announce their divorce and whether the undercurrent of tension in their own marriages would eventually lead to their demise. Did the fight I had with my wife on our actual anniversary that was particularly vicious mean we're going to get divorced? Do we argue too much? Do we have enough sex? Is everyone else having more sex? Can you get divorced within six months of an absentminded hand-kiss at a bat mitzvah? How miserable is too miserable?

He felt a strange call for diplomacy now. School was a battleground state, and it would be so easy to get people over to his side, he knew that. He knew he could allude to Rachel's craziness, her anger, her tantrums, her unwillingness to immerse herself in her children's lives — he could say things like "I mean, I'm sure you noticed that she never came to STEM Night?" — but he didn't want to. He didn't want to undermine Rachel's status at school out of an old sense of protectiveness that he couldnt quite shake. She was a monster, yes, but she had always been a monster, and she was still his monster, for she had not yet been claimed by another, for he was still not legally done with her, for she still haunted him. 

So much time had passed since then, and yet that was Rachel for him. He had spent so many years in the service of trying to relocate that Rachel within the Rachel that she kept proving herself to be. But even now, it was that version of Rachel that was the first that ever came to mind when he thought of her. He felt he would be doing worlds better if it weren't.

That he was still young enough to participate in what he had assigned as a purely youthful endeavor, which was spending a lot of time finding someone to fuck.

Hr, which was what his preferred dating app was called, was now his first-thing-in-the-morning check. It had replaced Facebook, since when he looked at Facebook, he became despondent and overwhelmed by the number of people he hadn't yet told about his divorce. 

It was that he couldn't bear to be with anyone who didn't yet truly understand consequences, how the world would have its way with you despite all your careful life planning There was no way to learn that until you lived it. There was no way for any of us to learn that until we lived it.

Before and after his hookups, there was something like a conversation. He quickly learned that that conversation had the potential to make him feel like he wanted to die. People under forty had optimism. They had optimism for the future; they didn't accept that their future was going to resemble their present with alarming specificity. They had velocity. He couldn't bear velocity just at that moment.

The stories he heard from divorced women were all the same — not the details, but the themes: This thing I thought was just a whim was actually an important part of mny spouse's identity, and still l'm surprised. This thing they had always been doing they kept doing and still I'm surprised. Here is how innocent I was and here is how cruel my spouse was.

Here is the problem: You can only desire something you don't have—that's how desire works. And we had each other. Resolutely.

In recent years, only their hatred had true intimacy, meaning that when they fought, they were able to say the most specifically cruel things they'd mined from years of experience with each other. He trod hard on her extraordinary maternal inconsistency; she went for his masculinity like it was an artery.

They held hands sometimes, which they hadn't done in years, and which he realized was a completely counterproductive, backward thing for them to do. There was calm, and with the calm came relief, and the relief felt in his body the way endorphins did, and he became worried that he would mistake that for love. He couldn't understand why, if they could be happy in each other's presence while they were in the last days of their marriage, why couldn't they have been happy for real?

Sometimes you saw couples who seemed wild about each other, always holding hands, sitting on the same side of the table when they ate out, even when they were together alone. Rachel would say that those people were putting on a show, that they were covering up a real poison in their relationship, and that was the only time Toby ever felt like she was on his side: when she was working as hard as he was to make their misery seem normal.

Life is a process in which you collect people and prune them when they stop working for you. The only exception to that rule is the friends you make in college.

A wife isn't like an ultra-girlfriend or a permanent girlfriend. She's an entirely new thing. She's somnething you made together, with you as an ingredient. She couldn't be the wife without you. So hating her or turning on her or talking to your friends about the troubles you have with her would be like hating your own finger. It's like hating your own finger even after it becomes necrotic. You don't separate yourself from it. You look at your wife and you're not really looking at someone you hate. You're looking at someone and seeing your own disabilities and your own disfigurement. You're hating your creation. You're hating yourself.

Her money allowed her to have a feminist streak despite having never experienced the pitfalls of the male-dominated world the way it existed: the Matt Kleins, the low expectations, the way people either were baffled or professed to be baffled by your existence, the patronizing you-go girls, the "she's the boss" from the husband who can only say that because they both absolutely knew who the boss was and it was certainly not her. Miriam had only heard of gender imbalance; how could she have experienced it? She didn't work. She didn't do anything but donate and exercise, donate and exercise, donate and exercise. When she put her money toward feminist causes, she was actually just addressing rumors she'd heard of a patriarchy.

But she could do that. She could pick and choose her interests. Miriam Rothberg was able to think straight and read books and think about who she would vote for and be sexually available to her husband because that was what money did. It bought you an additional life that ran parallel to your regular life, and between those two lives your goals were somehow achieved and everyone around you was satisfied.

A thing about growing up the way Rachel did was that whether or not you liked being lonely, aloneness became your body's resting condition—its set point. Which is to say that she didn't want friends. She didn't like Miriam and Roxanne and Cyndi, or they weren't the friends she wanted. Toby was the friend she wanted. Toby was the friend she had for life. Toby was who she could be alone with. When you are someone who is rejected her entire childhood for reasons that feel impossible to discern, there is little that could happen to you in your future that doesn't feel like further rejection.

He had a sister that he totally took for granted. He had parents—a mother whom he blamed for his terrible self-image, never once taking into consideration that the person he was talking to about this would have killed to have a mother to blame for anything. He had all those friends who wanted to be in his life from his youth. He had Seth. He had me. He had all the people who had ever seen him needy and pathetic and never once did that make it so that they didn't still love him.

She hadn't had these thoughts back when they were dating. When they were dating, she thought it was lucky that she had fallen in love with someone who was altruistic and smart and wanted to make sick people better. But they had shared values that they'd agreed upon. Rachel told Toby one night, whispering under the covers in her tiny dorm bed, all about her school and Catherine H. and tennis and that phone call. She said she never wanted to put children through that. He said, "I won't ever let it happen." He was talking about emotional support. She was talking about financial support. Maybe they hadn't agreed after all.

"I never misrepresented myself," he'd say. That was a favorite, as if people weren't supposed to evolve and change and make requests of each other to bend and grow and expand. At some point, she accepted it. It was up to her to make the kind of living that would allow them to participate in the life they'd signed up for. He accepted it, too. He pretended to be apathetic to the money, but you should have seen how he liked the car. You should have seen how he liked the club the pool on the rooftop, way above the city, both metaphorically and actually.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST * "A feminist jeremiad nested inside a brilliant comic novel--a book that makes you laugh so hard you don't notice till later that your eyebrows have been singed off."--Ron Charles, The Washington Post FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE'S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK * NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY AND THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * Time * The Washington Post * Vanity Fair * Vogue * NPR * Chicago Tribune * GQ * Vox * Refinery29 * Elle * The Guardian * Real Simple * Parade * Good Housekeeping * Marie Claire * Town & Country * Evening Standard * Kirkus Reviews * BookPage * BookRiot * Shelf Awareness A finely observed, timely exploration of marriage, divorce, and the bewildering dynamics of ambition from one of the most exciting writers working today Toby Fleishman thought he knew what to expect when he and his wife of almost fifteen years separated: weekends and every other holiday with the kids, some residual bitterness, the occasional moment of tension in their co-parenting negotiations. He could not have predicted that one day, in the middle of his summer of sexual emancipation, Rachel would just drop their two children off at his place and simply not return. He had been working so hard to find equilibrium in his single life. The winds of his optimism, long dormant, had finally begun to pick up. Now this. As Toby tries to figure out where Rachel went, all while juggling his patients at the hospital, his never-ending parental duties, and his new app-assisted sexual popularity, his tidy narrative of the spurned husband with the too-ambitious wife is his sole consolation. But if Toby ever wants to truly understand what happened to Rachel and what happened to his marriage, he is going to have to consider that he might not have seen things all that clearly in the first place. A searing, utterly unvarnished debut, Fleishman Is in Trouble is an insightful, unsettling, often hilarious exploration of a culture trying to navigate the fault lines of an institution that has proven to be worthy of our great wariness and our great hope. Alma's Best Jewish Novel of the Year "Blisteringly funny, feverishly smart, heartbreaking, and true, Fleishman Is in Trouble is an essential read for anyone who's wondered how to navigate loving (and hating) the people we choose."--Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest "From its opening pages, Fleishman Is in Trouble is shrewdly observed, brimming with wisdom, and utterly of this moment. Not until its explosive final pages are you fully aware of its cunning ferocity. Taffy Brodesser-Akner's debut is that rare and delicious treat: a page-turner with heft."--Maria Semple

The perspectives/sides to every story literary bits (light gone girl vibe) is excellent. Really exceptional. just wish i had been more compelled by the characters and their idiosyncrasies a bit more. honestly found them redundant in a way. rich yt new yorkers struggle in their marriage, as parents and become resentful (&complicated) people. i’m wondering what happened to the nanny.

mara henderson

Cracked something open, especially by the second half. A reminder of how much we can miss, even when we care.

"Dr. Toby Fleishman wakes up each morning surrounded by women. Women who are self-actualized and independent and know what they want--and, against all odds, what they want is Toby. Who knew what kind of life awaited him once he finally extracted himself from his nightmare of a marriage? Who knew that there were women out there who would actually look at him with softness and desire? But just as the winds of his optimism are beginning to pick up, they're quickly dampened, and then extinguished, when his ex-wife, Rachel, suddenly disappears. Toby thought he knew what to expect when he moved out: weekends and every other holiday with the kids, some residual bitterness, tense co-parenting negotiations. He never thought that one day Rachel would just drop their children off at his place and never come back. As Toby tries to figure out what happened and what it means, all while juggling his patients at the hospital, his never-ending parental duties, and his new, app-assisted sexual popularity, his tidy narrative of a spurned husband is his sole consolation. But if Toby ever wants to really understand where Rachel went and what really happened to his marriage, he is going to have to consider that he might not have seen it all that clearly in the first place. A searing, funny, and electric debut from one of the most exciting writers working today, Fleishman Is In Trouble is an exploration of a culture trying to navigate the fault lines of an institution that has proven to be worthy of both our great wariness and our great optimism"--

Caroline

I quite liked this, it felt different and sharp in unexpected places. The multiple perspectives and stories made me feel empathetic to the different characters, hating and liking them at the same time.

I’m not sure why I struggled to get invested in this book. I found the storytelling to be incoherent and the characters all lacked depth.

Robyn Claridge

Loved this book. A good reminder that there’s always at least two sides to every situation. A little confused by the narration.

Molly Bridge

What a treat for my melancholic temperament 

Ali Angco

It was compelling and kept me interested, but the big reveal fell flat. Along the way, things didn't make sense in a real-world context. A woman goes missing for weeks, and it's more of an annoyance than cause for alarm?

Jessica Gardner

This story of a failed marriage that has been crushed under the expectations of society, family, oneself and each other really managed to draw me in.

Tabea Lüth

Why is this story narrated by Libby? Why is Libby in this story?

Margo Koss

'Sharp and wicked, insightful and funny, and then suddenly so touching' DAVID NICHOLLS 'It is a Great Novel . . . It has depth, wit, nuance and life. Heartbreaking and funny' NIGELLA LAWSON 'This is the novel of the summer . . . There is no one that this book isn't for. I can't believe it's a first novel. 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 'This book is a work of utter perfection' ELIZABETH GILBERT THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Finally free from his nightmare marriage, Toby Fleishman is ready for a life of online dating and weekend-only parental duties. But as he optimistically looks to a future that is wildly different from the one he imagined, his life turns upside-down as his ex-wife, Rachel, suddenly disappears. While Toby tries to find out what happened - juggling work, kids and his new, app-assisted sexual popularity - his tidy narrative of a spurned husband is his sole consolation. But if he ever wants to really understand where Rachel went and what really happened to his marriage, he is going to have to consider that he might not have seen it all that clearly in the first place . . . WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE: 'So sharp' GUARDIAN 'The most astonishingly brilliant Trojan horse of a novel' DOLLY ALDERTON 'Wonderful. Utterly blistering . . . A wildly entertaining, moving story' MARIAN KEYES 'Brimming with wisdom and utterly of this moment . . . Taffy Brodesser-Akner's debut is that rare and delicious treat: a page turner with heft' MARIA SEMPLE LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2020 LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL SHORTLISTED FOR THE FICTION: DÉBUT BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS RUNNER-UP FOR THE MCKITTERICK PRIZE 2020 FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE/JOHN LEONARD AWARD FOR BEST FIRST BOOK

One of the best-selling novels of 2020

Fraser Simons

Fleishman can fuck right off. I did not like the character; it was so insufferably annoying to be in his mind that the premise was beside the point. Could not see myself struggling through this. 

I believe it’s supposed to be funny, but it’s not (to me). But, as I’ve mentioned before, most of the time comedy doesn’t hit for me, so if you like comedy, who knows, maybe you’ll dig it more than I did. DNF 10% ish.

Jenna

3.5 stars (#partner @randomhouse) • Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a tough book for me to review. I hated basically every character from the get go, did not root for anyone, and yet really enjoyed the book? It was confusing. I felt like I was hate reading a little bit but also I was loving it at the same time.

Toby Fleishman, recently divorced from his wife Rachel, is doing surprisingly well on online dating apps. Everyone wants to date him. But, when Rachel drops off the kids and doesn’t come back, his new freedom is interrupted, and he spends a lot of time ruminating about what went wrong in his marriage.

I don’t want to say too much about this book because I don’t want to give anything away, but I will say I loved the ending. It was satisfying. The book is a quick read. The writing is digestible and smart. At the end of the day, I would recommend it.

Abby Byers

I cannot BELIEVE how good this book was. It was stunning and perfectly written. Reading this right after Three Women may have been a bit much emotionally. Taffy understand women in a way I’ve never encountered before in literature.

Brian Walborn

Best Nonfiction book about modern marriage I've read this year! Ok, so this is actually fiction but mileage will vary per reader. I found this to be both well crafted with engaging characters throughout. Sharply written, hilarious, insightful, and most importantly, impossible to put down. Top recommendation.

Rebecca Light

I don't think I would have appreciated this book when I was 20, or maybe even 30. But now that I'm a mother approaching middle age, boy did I nod my head and shout YES many times while reading this. The narrative structure is interesting. I think it was important that the perspective was specifically that of a woman, and yet it was omniscient. On one hand I loved that—the omniscient woman who doesn't have to explain how she knows everything. On the other hand, it took me out a couple of times because my brain is so literal. I kept thinking, "How would she know all this?" But ultimately I think it was a smart choice, even if I had to do a couple of mental somersaults to buy in to it. I also loved how this book tackled technology, and dating in the age of apps. The juxtaposition of the father's behavior against what his tween daughter ends up doing made me stop and dismantle a lot of assumptions about what I'm going to expect from my own daughter with my smartphone in the other hand. In other words, we're hypocrites, and we blame our kids for it. Great great book. What a smart and savvy writer.

Elke Maasbommel

There are two sides to every story. Traditionally, when it comes to marriage, these sides are taken by men and women. Or, even more traditionally, men decided what the women were on their side. Thankfully, times are changing; marriages don’t have to be between men and women anymore, and women turn out to be very capable of telling their own stories, thank you very much. Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s debut novel Fleishman Is in Trouble takes a good look at these traditional roles. 

Fleishman Is in Trouble is about Toby Fleishman, a Jewish hepatologist from New York who is feeling very sorry for himself. He’s recently been divorced from Rachel – you know the type: only interested in status, always working late, and not spending any time with her family – who dumps her children at Toby’s new place and then vanishes from the world for weeks. Toby is desperately trying to manage his job, his family, and his dating life, and would really like to know where his ex-wife went.

It’s funny how the stories we tell others always favour ourselves. This is most definitely the case in Fleishman is in Trouble. When we first meet Toby Fleishman, we simply have to know that a) he’s a doctor, b) he’s short, and c) he has just divorced a monster. As a result, he hates people who make more money than he does (which is almost everyone), he hates those who are taller than he is (also, which is almost everyone), and above all else, he hates his ex-wife (who is tall and makes a lot of money). Oh, and d) according to his dating app, he is a wildly attractive man, for plenty of women want to have sex with him.
 
Toby is the kind of man who needs constant validation from others. He needs the women he’s dating with to tell him he’s amazing (it helps that you can write your own bio in these apps), and his best friend Libby is only there to convince him he's doing alright. Libby, who used to be a writer for a men’s magazine, decides to write down Toby’s story. Eventually, Libby realises that listening to Toby is very much like writing for that men’s magazine, since he never listens to her, and he cannot possibly imagine Libby (who’s rich, lives in a big house, and is happily married to a tall (!) man) having a hard time so let’s just focus on Toby’s problems again, shall we?
Only at the very end of the novel do we find out what has really happened to Rachel, when Libby accidentally bumps into her in a park somewhere in New York. Libby takes care of her, because Rachel is confused and doesn’t quite know what exactly happened to her. It does, however, become clear that Rachel isn’t as purely evil as Toby thinks she is. Slowly but surely, we realise that Toby isn’t as noble and as wronged as he claims to be.

There is so much more to Fleishman Is in Trouble than I initially thought. I was convinced the novel would be about an average man (Toby would never forgive me if he heard me describe him as such – but then again, he’d hate me anyway because I’m tall) living in New York City trying to make sense of his chaotic but horny post-marriage life. It just had to be with a title like that, didn't it? Turns out, the title might just as well refer to Rachel, since it's her last name, too.

Actually, nothing about this novel is about Toby, or men in general. Instead, it is about women. Even Toby's dating adventures are about women, because they are the ones chasing him and sending him nude pictures. However, the most important character is Libby. When she was still working at a men’s magazine, she realised more and more that she had to write with a man’s perspective. Furthermore, she noticed that men could get away with being self-assured, while women would be considered narcissistic if they would be saying the same thing. The only way she could share her opinion was to make it sound like a man voiced it. Brodesser-Akner does the same thing; she shares her opinion through Libby, Toby, and Rachel, and turns Fleishman Is in Trouble, which could easily have been a chick flick, into a feminist novel. And Toby doesn’t even know it, for he’s far too busy looking down on women.  

For a long time, women were seen as inferior to men. Women were the ones who stayed at home when they were married, they took care of the children, and they would make sure men were living happy lives. Taffy Brodesser-Akner clearly wanted to destroy that traditional ideal with her debut novel. Yes, she claims, women can earn more money than men; yes, it’s acceptable for women to celebrate their (financial) successes; yes, women can enjoy being tall; and yes, women can love sex, too. Dear old Toby Fleishman is a representative of all those men who fail to understand that the world is no longer solely theirs.

There are two sides to every story. Traditionally, men decided which story was told, but recently, women’s voices have become more and more plentiful and powerful. Some men might still not be able to accept this, but Fleishman Is in Trouble shows that they don’t really have an option anymore. I bet it's quite frightening for them, but I can't say I care much. It's time they found out what it's been like for women, for ages. Watch out, men, because we are coming - and we have a story to tell.

Read more book discussions on my blog: https://the-openbook.com
 



THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'The most astonishingly brilliant Trojan horse of a novel' DOLLY ALDERTON 'Sharp and wicked, insightful and funny, and then suddenly so touching' DAVID NICHOLLS 'This book is a work of utter perfection' ELIZABETH GILBERT 'Wonderful. Utterly blistering . . . A wildly entertaining, moving story' MARIAN KEYES Finally free from his nightmare of a marriage, Toby Fleishman is ready for a life of online dating and weekend-only parental duties. But as he optimistically looks to a future that is wildly different from the one he imagined, his life turns upside-down as his ex-wife, Rachel, suddenly disappears. While Toby tries to find out what happened - juggling work, kids and his new, app-assisted sexual popularity - his tidy narrative of a spurned husband is his sole consolation. But if he ever wants to really understand where Rachel went and what really happened to his marriage, he is going to have to consider that he might not have seen it all that clearly in the first place . . . A BLISTERING SATIRICAL NOVEL ABOUT MARRIAGE, DIVORCE AND MODERN RELATIONSHIPS, BY ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING NEW VOICES IN AMERICAN FICTION 'Brimming with wisdom and utterly of this moment . . . Taffy Brodesser-Akner's debut is that rare and delicious treat: a page turner with heft' MARIA SEMPLE '[A] heady cocktail of forensic observation, sardonic wit and cynicism mixed with zeitgest . . . A novel for our times' PANDORA SYKES 'It is a Great Novel . . . It has depth, wit, nuance and life. Heartbreaking and funny' NIGELLA LAWSON

Amy Buckle

Fleishman is in Trouble is a domestic drama concerning Toby Fleishman and his wife (or soon to be ex-wife Rachel). Having just separated, Toby finds himself suddenly surrounded by women who want him and is more than happy to oblige their wishes. But just as he’s starting to enjoy his life, Rachel disappears. She won’t answer his texts or calls, and it’s becoming an inconvenience for him, not only because it affects their kids, but also because it feels like she’s punishing him for all the things he supposedly didn’t do right while they were married. Coming to terms with the divorce and the real reason they separated, Toby tries to see their relationship from a new perspective – but will what he discovers be what he expected, or will he realise he’s been looking at it all wrong?

There were a few issues with the book for me; firstly, it never held my attention – I never felt very invested in the characters which was probably because they just weren’t very likeable. Toby seems obsessed with sex (and his new philandering life), so much so that I was reading soft porn for a good portion of the book, and the rest of the characters were just as crude and detestable, so frankly I didn’t care much for them or for the plot.

The narrative of this one was odd – told from the perspective of an unknown narrator, it was told in third person but the reader soon discovers it’s not from an omniscient narrator, but rather from another character in the book. Seemingly chosen to give the book a layer of complexity, this style fell flat for me, and if anything, just made the perspective confusing to follow.

The structure being what it was (no chapters and three very long parts) meant that I was close to giving up with it in parts. The drawn-out style made it far from digestible and did nothing for the pacing either. I’d heard from other people that the third part was what made the book worth it, so I stuck around for that, but unfortunately I was disappointed – it was hardly the The Girl on the Train unreliable narrative twist I was hoping for.

To the book’s credit, I appreciate what it was trying to achieve, and as someone who likes reading about the human condition and domestic life, I wanted to love this book but just didn’t…

A book with potential and a storyline I could have been invested in, this novel (for me) ending up a disappointing and underwhelming read. I wanted to find truth in the supposed domesticity of relationships and read about a realistic, yet finally truthful marriage, but Fleishman is in Trouble did none of that. Instead it simply portrayed frustrated and unlikeable characters whose storylines were no more intruiging or different from the mundane relationships we see in loads of other books, and in real life too.

Anna Jacobs

Nikki Cannon

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST • “A feminist jeremiad nested inside a brilliant comic novel—a book that makes you laugh so hard you don’t notice till later that your eyebrows have been singed off.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE’S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY AND THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • The Washington Post • Vanity Fair • Vogue • NPR • Chicago Tribune • GQ • Vox • Refinery29 • Elle • The Guardian • Real Simple • Parade • Good Housekeeping • Marie Claire • Town & Country • Evening Standard • Kirkus Reviews • BookPage • BookRiot • Shelf Awareness A finely observed, timely exploration of marriage, divorce, and the bewildering dynamics of ambition from one of the most exciting writers working today Toby Fleishman thought he knew what to expect when he and his wife of almost fifteen years separated: weekends and every other holiday with the kids, some residual bitterness, the occasional moment of tension in their co-parenting negotiations. He could not have predicted that one day, in the middle of his summer of sexual emancipation, Rachel would just drop their two children off at his place and simply not return. He had been working so hard to find equilibrium in his single life. The winds of his optimism, long dormant, had finally begun to pick up. Now this. As Toby tries to figure out where Rachel went, all while juggling his patients at the hospital, his never-ending parental duties, and his new app-assisted sexual popularity, his tidy narrative of the spurned husband with the too-ambitious wife is his sole consolation. But if Toby ever wants to truly understand what happened to Rachel and what happened to his marriage, he is going to have to consider that he might not have seen things all that clearly in the first place. A searing, utterly unvarnished debut, Fleishman Is in Trouble is an insightful, unsettling, often hilarious exploration of a culture trying to navigate the fault lines of an institution that has proven to be worthy of our great wariness and our great hope. Alma’s Best Jewish Novel of the Year “Blisteringly funny, feverishly smart, heartbreaking, and true, Fleishman Is in Trouble is an essential read for anyone who’s wondered how to navigate loving (and hating) the people we choose.”—Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest “From its opening pages, Fleishman Is in Trouble is shrewdly observed, brimming with wisdom, and utterly of this moment. Not until its explosive final pages are you fully aware of its cunning ferocity. Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s debut is that rare and delicious treat: a page-turner with heft.”—Maria Semple

Fleishman Is in Trouble A Novel

Reviews

Highlights