Publication Date July 9, 2024

I’m a fan of family sagas and social satire, so I was eager to read Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, who wrote Fleishman In Trouble. Thanks to Random House and NetGalley, I received a copy in exchange for my honest review. 

For starters, and because I don’t really know WHERE to start, here is a blurb that spells out the intent: “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.” WHEW! 

The book starts out in an intriguing way: it is 1980, and a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He gets out unscathed, and the family (Carl, his wife, and their three children) as a whole moves on. They realize that their wealth and privilege was what made him a target, but is also what assured his safety.  Fast forward about four decades, and it seems none of them ever got over it. 

But now, nearly forty years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all. The three children seem wildly different: Nathan, an attorney, lives in fear, and his paralysis keeps him from career success.  Beamer became a screenwriter in Hollywood, and binges on drugs, food, and sex to numb his fears. And finally Jenny…well, she just wants to prove to any and everyone that she is different. As the family struggles with the realization that their great fortune is just about gone, issues of class are in the forefront.  

I was taken in by the early part – the kidnapping grabbed me right away. But, as things went along, I found I just didn’t care – about any of the characters or what happened to any and all of them. It’s well written, and I am sure it will be loved and appreciated by many – rich or not, Jewish or not. But it just wasn’t my thing. Sadly, only two stars for this disappointing (for me) effort.