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But he also wanted to not hate himself in the morning.
Its not surprising, then, that she started writing novels.
Now, in her second novel, the Jewish American family sagaLong Island Compromise,she has tripled down.
The zaniness, judgmental eye, and intermittent bursts of sincerity youll find in her profiles are all here.
It can seem a little like a machine that wont power down even after it has started smoking.
Bad reputation, one character explains), is kidnapped.
Immediately, the people around him see to it he represses the entire ugly experience.
Listen to me, boychick, Phyllis says when he starts to cry.
This happened to your body.
This did not happen to you.
The Fletcher patriarchs apparent kidnappers are long since captured and dead.
Deep in the back of his mind, the kidnapping replays.
The book is not subtle about the link between his fathers captivity and Beamers desire to be tied up.
Nor is it coy about how the aftermath of those five days affected the other two Fletcher children.
but theres a predetermined quality to their personalities that feels less than human.
Theres not much free will in Brodesser-Akners world.
Like, look at what you do.
Youre a union organizer, Beamer says to his sister.
Thats really something in a family like ours.
Like, its not an accident.
From a character development point of view.
Beamers fine-boned, blonde non-Jewish wife and two children, Liesl and Wolf, are more of the same.
Its a strange way to cast intermarriage, even through narration were not necessarily supposed to agree with.
As the daughter of a Jewish man and a non-Jewish woman, I met that line with a cringe.
ReadingLong Island Compromise,I found myself papering over the Fletchers with the Roys more than a few times.
The idealistic grad-school unionizers sat in.
Theydiedin, goes one typical Taffy rhythm.
A few lines earlier: They were enraged.
They had strong, definitive points of view.
The familys trauma is the kidnapping, but its also the Holocaust.
Money was the solution and it was time for them to finally relax, Ruth thinks.
In some ways, this is a book-length meditation on that argument, passed around from character to character.
Ah, that old idea: the naive young Jew who sides with the oppressor.
Its not an ultimately satisfying end, but it mostly works its own kind of compromise.
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