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Long Island Compromise: A Novel Hardcover – July 9, 2024

by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (Author)

5,458 ratings

Editors' pick Best Literature & Fiction

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An exhilarating novel about one American family and the dark moment that shatters their suburban paradise, from the New York Times bestselling author of Fleishman Is in Trouble

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • New York Magazine’s Beach Read Book Club Pick • Belletrist Book Club Pick

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

“Joins the pantheon of great American novels.”—Los Angeles Times
“Exuberant and absorbing . . . a big old-fashioned social novel.”—The Atlantic

“Were we gangsters? No. But did we know how to start a fire?”

In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety.

But now, nearly forty years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all. Carl has spent the ensuing years secretly seeking closure to the matter of his kidnapping, 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 fear won’t allow him to advance at his law firm; Beamer, a Hollywood screenwriter, will consume anything—substance, foodstuff, women—in order to numb his own perpetual terror; and Jenny has spent her life so bent on proving that she’s not a product of her family’s pathology that she has come to define it. As they hover at the delicate precipice of a different kind of survival, they learn that the family fortune has dwindled to just about nothing, and they must face desperate questions about how much their wealth has played a part in both their lives’ successes and failures.

Long Island Compromise spans the entirety of one family’s history, winding through decades and generations, all the way to the outrageous present, and confronting the mainstays of American Jewish life: tradition, the pursuit of success, the terror of history, fear of the future, old wives’ tales, evil eyes, ambition, achievement, boredom, dybbuks, inheritance, pyramid schemes, right-wing capitalists, beta-blockers, psychics, and the mostly unspoken love and shared experience that unite a family forever.

From the Publisher

• An outrageously funny saga of wealth, inheritance, and family

The first generation builds the house. The second lives in it. The third burns it down.

WARNING: California’s Proposition 65

Editorial Reviews

Review

“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

About the Author

Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and the New York Times bestselling author of Fleishman Is in Trouble, which has been translated into more than a dozen languages. She is also the creator and executive producer of its Emmy-nominated limited series adaptation for FX. Long Island Compromise is her second novel.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

A Dybbuk in the Works

Do you want to hear a story with a terrible ending?

On Wednesday, March 12, 1980, Carl Fletcher, one of the richest men in the Long Island suburb where we grew up, was kidnapped from his driveway on his way to work.

It had been an unremarkable morning. Carl had awoken and showered and dressed and gone downstairs to kiss his wife, Ruth, goodbye, same as always. Ruth had already presented their two sons, Nathan and Bernard, with their bowls of Product 19 when Carl patted them on the head and left the kitchen and headed out the door into the bright sunlight. The weather was still generally straightforward back then, and spring peeked through the slush of a latest-winter storm that was taking its time to melt. The reflection blinded him a little; his vision was still pocked with dark spots when he inserted the keys into the door of the Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham he’d purchased the previous year.

His brain hadn’t yet registered the sound of someone else’s footsteps through the slush before a man leapt from behind onto Carl’s back and hooded him in one fast, balletic move, turning Carl’s world instantly to black. Inside the hood were the amplified sounds of Carl’s own suddenly fast breathing and grunting. Someone else—there were two men—pulled the keys from the lock and settled himself into the driver’s seat while the first man struggled with Carl. Now, Carl was a tall man. The two men seemed significantly smaller. It was only the shock of the attack that allowed them to successfully wrest Carl into the footwell of his car.

The Brougham drove away, down and out the C-shaped driveway, away from the giant waterfront Tudor on St. James Drive where the Fletchers lived. It drove through the township of Middle Rock, making a right onto Ocean Vista Road, passing the Fletchers’ neighbors’ own colossal homes, then over the bridge, then gliding right by, at the 1.8-mile mark, the sixteen-acre estate where Carl had grown up and where his mother was sitting at a Queen Anne desk right at that very moment, writing checks to the electric company and to the synagogue. Then, past the library, past the butcher, past Duplo’s Ski and Skate Shop, where Carl’s mother had bought him roller skates as a child and where he himself had just recently bought a first tennis racquet for his older son; past the turnoff to the synagogue where Carl had been bar mitzvahed; past the reception hall where he’d gotten married; past the two-block ghetto of auto repair shops, making a right turn onto Shore Turnpike and out of Middle Rock, which, until that moment, was most famous for being the setting of a famous novel from the 1920s (and its author’s residence there) and, since, for being the first American suburb to arrive at a Jewish population of fifty percent.

The kidnappers drove for about an hour until they stopped, pulled Carl out of the footwell, and dragged him up a few steps, into somewhere cavernous (the echo of the footsteps told Carl the place was cavernous), then dragged him down two flights of what felt like the same kind of serrated steel-tread stairs they had at the factory that Carl owned, Consolidated Packing Solutions, Ltd. From the steps he was pushed into a small space that he surmised was a closet. The dark became darkest. The Brougham was never found.

Carl was not suspected to be missing until around three o’clock that afternoon. An hour before that, Ruth had looked at the clock and realized that it was time to pick up Nathan from school. She was in the early stages of her third pregnancy and her morning sickness hadn’t abated by the afternoon and she was concerned it wasn’t actually morning sickness but a virus that had sent her to the couch that morning and kept her there for most of the afternoon, letting Bernard, who was four, watch three reruns of Gilligan’s Island in a row. She considered calling her friend Linda Messinger and asking her to pick Nathan up, but she’d already asked Linda to take him to school in the morning in the first place with her own six-year-old, Jared. Linda did not yet know that Ruth was pregnant, and so Ruth didn’t want to ask her—a two-way favor would have sold Ruth and her condition out, and Ruth didn’t want anyone to know this early, not even Linda Messinger, who she wasn’t always so sure was rooting for her. She instead called her mother-in-law, Phyllis. Phyllis was a widow with a driver and lived just up the road, a spry fifty-five or fifty (she had destroyed all records of her birth when she turned thirty-six or thirty-one—nobody knew for sure).

While Ruth waited for Nathan, she called the factory to ask Carl if he could pick up eggs and spaghetti on his way home. Carl’s secretary, Hannah Zolinski, answered the phone and made noises of delay and then confusion and then finally told Ruth that Carl had never made it into the office that day. Hannah had assumed he was taking a day off. She’d been surprised, she told Ruth, since there was a purchase order that needed fulfilling for the Albertson’s account, and Carl had expressed concern the day before that the drafting department was lagging on the order. This would put the factory behind schedule by days or weeks. Hannah hadn’t called him at home because, she told Ruth, there was no need to; the drafting department had delivered and everything was running smoothly for Albertson. (Secretly, Hannah was worried that Carl had told her he was taking the day off and she hadn’t remembered, which would make Carl angry. Hannah had recently become engaged to a man from the factory’s engineering department and had already been berated by Carl for her distraction several times in the prior two weeks. Carl, Hannah knew, took pride in a distinct form of management: running “a tight ship,” which mostly meant walking around with the baseline assumption that everyone was stealing from him constantly—sometimes in the form of money, but especially in the form of time. This was a lesson passed to him by his own father, who had founded and run the factory all the way up to his death, and this was why Carl rarely took time off, much less spontaneous time, and also why Hannah later told the police that she felt she would have remembered it if Carl had told her he was taking the day.)

Ruth hung up the phone, her finger to her mouth. She stood for a long minute, the phone going dead, then silent, then the dial tone, then the obscene, too-loud clamor of a 1980s kitchen phone off the hook. Her mother-in-law walked in and looked from Ruth to the phone and then back to Ruth.

“What is wrong with you?” Phyllis asked.

Within twenty minutes, the local police arrived. Within an hour, Ruth’s mother, Lipshe, entered. Within twenty-four hours, the FBI was setting up camp at Carl and Ruth’s home: five full-time agents (two of whom were named John), one of them a woman (Leslie), around the clock, sleeping in the guest rooms and the kids’ rooms and the living room. There were three members of the Middle Rock Police Department assigned to the house, but they were mostly useless. Owing to its wealth and relative distance from anything that resembled a working-class neighborhood, Middle Rock was a preternaturally safe place in the 1980s, and the police there had no experience dealing with something as strange and theoretically violent as a suddenly missing person.

Ruth showed the agents recent pictures of Carl from their nephew’s bar mitzvah and gave a description: six foot three, meaty but not fat, a prolific head of beautiful brown hair that defied logic—at thirty-three, a mere one on the Hamilton-Norwood baldness scale, same as when she met him—brown eyes that always looked like they were in a squint but were nonetheless kind, and a nose whose apex pointed downward so that he almost always looked like he was slightly repulsed by the thing he was looking at. Ruth’s eyes stopped on a picture of the two of them dancing, her looking over her shoulder, perhaps her name being called by someone or just the photographer who took the picture. “This is us dancing,” she said. The agents nodded thoughtfully and wrote in their notepads.

And they asked questions: Was anyone angry at him? Did anyone have reason to threaten him? Did he ever talk about enemies, or even something more innocuous, like a random person who hated him? Was there—just hear us out—was there possibly another woman?

“You keep mentioning this Hannah Zolinski,” one of the Johns said, checking his notes.

“She’s his secretary,” Ruth said, exasperated. She did not like feeling accused; she did not like that in addition to managing the stress of this absurd situation, she had to also clear her husband’s reputation when it seemed very clear to nearly everyone that he was a victim of something. “If you knew how he gets frustrated with her,” she tried. Then, quickly, as if this might vindicate him in his absence: “She’s engaged! Hannah is recently engaged! To a Socialist!”

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House (July 9, 2024)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 464 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593133498
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593133491
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.49 x 1.48 x 9.54 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #13,556 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #159 in Fiction Satire
- #546 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- #1,459 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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Taffy Brodesser-Akner

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Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine and the author of two novels: Fleishman Is in Trouble (2019, Random House), which she adapted into an Emmy-nominated limited series for FX in 2022; and Long Island Compromise (2024, also Random House). She lives in New York City.

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Customers find the book engaging with an audacious sense of humor and smart writing style, while also appreciating its insightful content. The story receives mixed reactions, with some finding it compelling while others describe it as boring. The character development and emotional depth also receive mixed reviews, with some finding the characters well-developed while others find them unlikeable, and some finding it deeply poignant while others describe it as depressing. The book's length is criticized for being very long.

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Readability Humor Insight Story quality Character development Writing style Emotional depth Length

32 customers mention "Readability"23 positive9 negative

Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as an epic and compelling work, with one customer comparing it to a really good episode of reality TV.

"...The novel was excellent at showing the problems that come with money, and what happens when people are insulated from the cares of the world - but..." Read more

"...The section about Beamer and his life in LA is good enough to have made me glad I read this book, but I expect to remember my disappointment by the..." Read more

"...I suppose it’s not meant to be great literature. So disheartening to see all the unabashed accolades from the NYC-centric media machine once again." Read more

"...of their own woes to be like-able yet they are recognizable and compelling and well, it's not all their fault ...their predicaments are "ouchy"..." Read more

18 customers mention "Humor"18 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's humor, describing it as audacious and smart, with one customer noting it's raunchy in a good and necessary way.

"...There is quite a bit of narrative, but the author makes it quite engaging...." Read more

"At about the 50% point, I was really liking this novel. It felt funny and smart and insightful...." Read more

"...relationships, forgiveness , and so much more all with an audacious sense of humor and compassion for her characters who are way too responsible for..." Read more

"...Parts literally made me laugh out loud. She has such insight into troubled families...." Read more

10 customers mention "Insight"10 positive0 negative

Customers find the book insightful and smart, with one customer highlighting its exploration of modern business issues.

"...It felt funny and smart and insightful...." Read more

"...The book explores so many topics - family trauma , the effects of wealth and privilege, addiction, dysfunctional relationships, forgiveness , and so..." Read more

"...happened with Jenny, all of it emotional trauma from her mother, hit home for me and I'm sure many more...." Read more

"...The references certainly hit home...." Read more

35 customers mention "Story quality"23 positive12 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the book's story, with some finding it compelling and intriguing, while others find it boring.

"I truly enjoyed this book. It is a strong character study into generational trauma from the perspective of a wealthy Long Island family...." Read more

"This was definitely an interesting story, although at times a bit tedious. The novel fluctuates between characters...." Read more

"...Alas, it was a struggle because the tone ill-fit the topic...." Read more

"...The first section about the second son, Beamer, is highly entertaining and has a real pulse...." Read more

28 customers mention "Character development"10 positive18 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the character development in the book, with some finding them well developed while others find them unlikeable.

"...The bitter ending, devoid of empathy, forecloses the possibility of insight into human nature...." Read more

"...It was definitely a page turner and I felt myself getting invested in the characters and what happens to them. Definitely worth the read." Read more

"...It’s got a lot of entertainment value. For me the characters never became more than one dimensional, and the main premise seemed a stretch—guy never..." Read more

"...characters in this book are like none other I’ve read before...not entirely likable, but more like curious exhibits in a zoo...." Read more

17 customers mention "Writing style"9 positive8 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the writing style of the book, with some finding it extremely well written while others describe it as tedious.

"...Great writing !" Read more

"...Worst, from a literary perspective, the writing is preachy...." Read more

"...Although I guess that will make it easier to read on the beach, it also makes the book much bigger and heavier to pack...." Read more

"...It is so tedious, and unnecessarily descriptive. The characters are both boring and unlikeable...." Read more

15 customers mention "Emotional depth"6 positive9 negative

Customers have mixed reactions to the emotional depth of the book, with some finding it deeply poignant, while others describe it as heartbreaking and depressing.

"...as it went on and the author tried to dig deeper and find meaning in inherited trauma and from the impacts of money on happiness...." Read more

"...The book explores so many topics - family trauma , the effects of wealth and privilege, addiction, dysfunctional relationships, forgiveness , and so..." Read more

"...exposition of the main characters sometimes to be over the top and upsetting...." Read more

"A sprawling family drama about the Jewish American dream, inherited trauma, the paradox of generational wealth, and three rich siblings who, despite..." Read more

7 customers mention "Length"0 positive7 negative

Customers find the book's length negative, describing it as very long with large print.

"...To my surprise when I received the book today, it was the large print edition, which I did not intend to order...." Read more

"...Haven't read anything like it. But it was long and it compounded all the misery the characters went through." Read more

"Very long and convoluted family saga, confusing parts because it went back and forth between characters. In the end it went on too long...." Read more

"I found this book a touch disturbing and it went on way too long. Decent characters but just too windy for me." Read more

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Jaye P
An excellent character-driven novel
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2025
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I truly enjoyed this book. It is a strong character study into generational trauma from the perspective of a wealthy Long Island family. There is quite a bit of narrative, but the author makes it quite engaging. The novel was excellent at showing the problems that come with money, and what happens when people are insulated from the cares of the world - but at the same time have the world intrude on their life. It was definitely a page turner and I felt myself getting invested in the characters and what happens to them. Definitely worth the read.

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Elizabeth18
Interesting storylines
Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2025
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This was definitely an interesting story, although at times a bit tedious. The novel fluctuates between characters. telling the story from each of their perspectives. Some characters were more likable, their adaptation to the kidnapping and its aftermath leading to a lifestyle that varied in its appeal. I found Beamer and his sexual pursuits to be uninteresting after the initial episodes. Nathan was more of a “nebbish” evoking sympathy for his plight but also some frustration. The other characters were at times interesting and at times the recipient. of an impatient “eye roll”. Overall it was an absorbing enjoyable story,

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JAH
Mixed Bag
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2024
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At about the 50% point, I was really liking this novel. It felt funny and smart and insightful. Unfortunately, it deteriorated as it went on and the author tried to dig deeper and find meaning in inherited trauma and from the impacts of money on happiness. An inconsistent tone - is this a black comedy or are we supposed to feel something for these characters - was a major weakness for me.

The overarching family drama is very much a Jonathan Franzen knock-off built around a wealthy Jewish family from Long Island. After a quick start where the plot is set in motion, each of 3 adult children get long sections.

The first section about the second son, Beamer, is highly entertaining and has a real pulse. It's clear Brodesser-Akner knows his world well and with it creates intense - almost unbearably so - drama. The second section about the older son keep, Nathan, also felt insightful and real. Jenny, the daughter at the center of the third section, feels completely under-cooked and two dimensional - more a series of personality traits and bad decisions than a fleshed out character.

From there the novel loses steam until an end where everything is wrapped up much too neatly with not a single surprise. Some important secondary characters are either made of cardboard (Carl the father, his sister Marjorie who, while entertaining and interesting, doesn't seem the least bit real) or ciphers (Arthur, Phyllis).

The section about Beamer and his life in LA is good enough to have made me glad I read this book, but I expect to remember my disappointment by the end more than anything.

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10 people found this helpful

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Carol B
hilarious and poignant disfunctional family drama -
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2025
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This book was both Hilarious and deeply poignant and moving. I particularly identified having grown up Jewish in the 60's in the part of Long Island the book takes place and also having immigrant grandparents and family who also escaped the Holocaust. The book explores so many topics - family trauma , the effects of wealth and privilege, addiction, dysfunctional relationships, forgiveness , and so much more all with an audacious sense of humor and compassion for her characters who are way too responsible for most of their own woes to be like-able yet they are recognizable and compelling and well, it's not all their fault ...their predicaments are "ouchy" and funny and over the top yet believable I Loved this book ! Great writing !

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2 people found this helpful

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David
Ordered the paperback, but did not know it would be large print
Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2024
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I ordered a book to take on vacation, Long Island Compromise, by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, a novel I have been looking forward to reading. To my surprise when I received the book today, it was the large print edition, which I did not intend to order. Although I guess that will make it easier to read on the beach, it also makes the book much bigger and heavier to pack. I went back to the Amazon site, but nowhere where do I see indicated that the paperback is a large print edition. Perhaps this is why the paperback is more expensive than the hardcover?????? Wish I’d known. Amazon, do better!

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cuddlemama
Beautiful writing, gripping narrative
Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2025
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I bought Long Island Compromise after reading two nonfiction pieces by this author in the New York Times. The Times pieces were so moving, I had to tell friends about them. I feel the same way about this novel. The author has such a gift for language, for weaving different narratives. Parts literally made me laugh out loud. She has such insight into troubled families. My upbringing was a far cry from those of her characters, but I could still relate. I have to push myself to finish some novels. I didn’t want to put this one down.

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Brains
I was going to give it 4 stars but......
Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2025
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As soon as I got to the section about the daughter Jenny, I immediately knew that this was a 5 star read. The description of what happened with Jenny, all of it emotional trauma from her mother, hit home for me and I'm sure many more. After that section I was just enthralled by the rest of the book. Family drama and gratitude from where you came from at its' very finest.

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2 people found this helpful

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Marty
Very Engaging!
Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2024
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This was a very interesting story with a starting point based on an actual kidnapping that occurred in the 1980’s. What was particularly fun for me was reading about the wealthy town of Middle Rock which is a cover of the actual Long Island town of Great Neck where I lived for 35 years and brought up my children. The references certainly hit home. While I overall enjoyed the book, I found the description and exposition of the main characters sometimes to be over the top and upsetting. I thought the author went too far at times in discussing the foibles of these very flawed characters. Overall a very good read.

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3 people found this helpful

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Andrew Gott
spectacular
Reviewed in Australia on January 21, 2025
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Fabulous story, terribly horrid characters, couldn’t stand any of them but soaked up every sentence with glee. Good for them.

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DOUGLAS
AUSLANDER SAID IT BEST.....
Reviewed in Canada on August 5, 2024
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FEH

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Brummie
Highly recommended
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 10, 2025
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I love this book. It's written in a way that pulls you in, surprises you and I cannot put it down. It makes me laugh out loud in the most unexpected parts. You get to know each character so well. I really appreciate that. Highly recommended.

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Hella Lubov
I waited for this book...
Reviewed in Germany on August 9, 2024
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...and now I am overwhelmed!

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Hewy
Long Island Compromise
Reviewed in Australia on August 20, 2024
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I’m a great fan of Jewish/American writing, plays, dialogue and so for me this book was pure joy.

I laughed out loud many times.

What a family the Fletchers are. Had the family in ‘Arrested Development’ been Jewish, you’ve got the dysfunctional beginnings of this family.

My secret fandom of Mandy Patinkin was right-royally fed in this book.

So much fun.

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Long Island Compromise: A Novel Hardcover – July 9, 2024

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Taffy Brodesser-Akner

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5.0 out of 5 stars spectacular

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5.0 out of 5 stars Long Island Compromise

spectacular

AUSLANDER SAID IT BEST.....

Highly recommended

I waited for this book...

Long Island Compromise