Informationen zum Autor Taffy Brodesser-Akner Klappentext 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 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 The best book about America I've read lately . . . The novel concerns being Jewish, being an immigrant, class, family, wealth, and how that wealth can disfigure people. It's all terribly funny, which always helps.David Sedaris for Time, 25 Books That Capture This American Moment Joins the pantheon of great American novels. Los Angeles Times Exuberant and absorbing . . . a big old-fashioned social novel. The Atlantic 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 anythingdrugs, food, womento 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. New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • Belletrist Book Club Pick Leseprobe 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 elsethere were two menpulled the keys from the lock and settled h...

Autorentext

Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Klappentext

**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
*
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
*
“The best book about America I’ve read lately . . . The novel concerns being Jewish, being an immigrant, class, family, wealth, and how that wealth can disfigure people. It’s all terribly funny, which always helps.”—David Sedaris for Time, “25 Books That Capture This American Moment”

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

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.

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • Belletrist Book Club Pick

Leseprobe
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, …