Scan barcode
A review by edgwareviabank
Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
challenging
funny
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
I finished this in March, so if I had a 2022 Book I Want To Talk About With Absolutely Everyone award, it would have got an early winner three months in. It's June now, and one book I've read more recently is becoming a serious challenger, but for now, I stand firmly by my choice.
Fleishman Is In Trouble is an incredibly well written, funny, heartbreaking, complex, sometimes infuriating book. I'd buy it for all my friends who enjoy reading, if I was absolutely sure they would have the time to read it from start to end, but this is not the kind of book one can pick up and then put on hold when life gets in the way, and there's plenty of that going round for all of us. I read most of it on a break in between jobs, which was the right choice: it's a slow burner that required my complete, undivided attention. Too slow, I worried at the start, as some of the unknowns presented right at the start took quite a few pages to slot into place: who the narrator was, what their relationship to the main character Toby Fleishman was, and why the disappearance of Toby's wife, Rachel, was significant to the story.
Hang on a second. Is it a coincidence that the friends who enjoy reading I'm thinking of, the friends I'd buy this book for, are all mothers? I think not. If I, an unmarried woman with no kids, can clearly see the essence of the conflict that makes it impossible for the characters in this book to understand each other (Toby, his wife Rachel and his friend Elizabeth in particular), I can only imagine that someone who navigates or has navigated gender dynamics as a spouse and parent will relate three-fold.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner's genius lies in the way she works with point of view. A good chunk of the book is about Toby trying to handle his estranged wife's disappearance without upsetting the routine he created for himself, and without upsetting his kids, all the while confronting all sorts of hard feelings about their marriage and the way it ended. One of the key quotes at this stage is Toby's lawyer pointing out that wives tend to get the short end of the stick in divorce settlements, and in Toby's case, he is the wife. The author seems to be working hard to make Toby a relatable character, someone to feel compassion and wish all the best for. And then, when the reader least expects it, the point of view shifts. New information comes to light. Rachel's disappearance assumes a new meaning. But does that mean everything we've learnt about Toby and Rachel so far is wrong? Has the author been trying to trick the reader, or is there more at play? As modern social media relationship statuses would go, it's complicated.
What makes Fleishman Is In Trouble such a complex, multi-layered novel is the knowledge that no one character holds a single truth. There's no one "good guy" and no one "bad guy": just people starting out with an idea of what they want their lives and partners to be like, changing throughout their lives, and hurting each other (as well as those around them) as they forget, or fail to re-learn, how to communicate. I can't say any more without risking spoilers, so I'll just say read it, read it, read it.
Fleishman Is In Trouble is an incredibly well written, funny, heartbreaking, complex, sometimes infuriating book. I'd buy it for all my friends who enjoy reading, if I was absolutely sure they would have the time to read it from start to end, but this is not the kind of book one can pick up and then put on hold when life gets in the way, and there's plenty of that going round for all of us. I read most of it on a break in between jobs, which was the right choice: it's a slow burner that required my complete, undivided attention. Too slow, I worried at the start, as some of the unknowns presented right at the start took quite a few pages to slot into place: who the narrator was, what their relationship to the main character Toby Fleishman was, and why the disappearance of Toby's wife, Rachel, was significant to the story.
Hang on a second. Is it a coincidence that the friends who enjoy reading I'm thinking of, the friends I'd buy this book for, are all mothers? I think not. If I, an unmarried woman with no kids, can clearly see the essence of the conflict that makes it impossible for the characters in this book to understand each other (Toby, his wife Rachel and his friend Elizabeth in particular), I can only imagine that someone who navigates or has navigated gender dynamics as a spouse and parent will relate three-fold.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner's genius lies in the way she works with point of view. A good chunk of the book is about Toby trying to handle his estranged wife's disappearance without upsetting the routine he created for himself, and without upsetting his kids, all the while confronting all sorts of hard feelings about their marriage and the way it ended. One of the key quotes at this stage is Toby's lawyer pointing out that wives tend to get the short end of the stick in divorce settlements, and in Toby's case, he is the wife. The author seems to be working hard to make Toby a relatable character, someone to feel compassion and wish all the best for. And then, when the reader least expects it, the point of view shifts. New information comes to light. Rachel's disappearance assumes a new meaning. But does that mean everything we've learnt about Toby and Rachel so far is wrong? Has the author been trying to trick the reader, or is there more at play? As modern social media relationship statuses would go, it's complicated.
What makes Fleishman Is In Trouble such a complex, multi-layered novel is the knowledge that no one character holds a single truth. There's no one "good guy" and no one "bad guy": just people starting out with an idea of what they want their lives and partners to be like, changing throughout their lives, and hurting each other (as well as those around them) as they forget, or fail to re-learn, how to communicate. I can't say any more without risking spoilers, so I'll just say read it, read it, read it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Medical trauma