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Welcome to the final installment ofBeach Read Book Clubs discussion of Taffy Brodesser-AknersLong Island Compromise.
Today, were tackling the end of the book and its many revelations.
(If you need a refresher, catch up on partsone,two,three, andfour.)
Lets start with the reveal that Ike was the one who kidnapped Carl.
How do you feel about the fact that readers dont see the family discover the identity of the kidnappers?
Emily Gould:It didnt make sense to me.
Jason P. Frank:It seems to me like the author is not a master of shock.
You want to feel shocked then like it all makes sense.
I was kind of left going, Huh, thats really what youre going with?
Ike kept going, I cant believe he was there right under my nose and I didnt know.
Kathryn VanArendonk:I had the same reaction.
I wasnt bowled over by shock.
I was willing to accept that that character had been hanging out in the background the whole time.
It is so on the nose, but it makes sense; this is also how America works.
We have talked about the need for more of an outside perspective that would have been really helpful.
This feels too tidy, like a cute little trick.
It feels like she doesnt want to glamorize it in the reveal of it because its true.
I think shes afraid to examine Carls psyche.
Are you trying to give the reader or viewer catharsis?
I was so turned off by it, then immediately thrilled about the Ike revelation.
Jason:I didnt want this book to have more definitiveness.
In the ending, I really liked when she bends narratives back around on each other.
I love that we found out that Zelig killed Chaim.
We got to feel the emotion of someone else correcting a narrative that we had already heard.
I love when she allows stories and truth to be bendy.
Having an omniscient narrator tell me what happens when a person dies is the opposite of that.
Zach:Something that really bothered me: How rude for him to die at the bar mitzvah!
Theres also no mention of how deeply traumatizing that is going to be for Nathans kids forever.
Kathryn:You cant throw a bar mitzvah in his family anymore.
These kids should have figured that out by now.
Julie:Is it possible to schedule a funeral that fast?
If he dies that night and then you have the funeral the next morning?
Kathryn:Yeah, because you have to do it quickly.
They know how to do it.
One thing Ill say just as a personal opinion, a bar mitzvah at the house is tacky.
Rent a venue, it’s possible for you to afford it.
Julie:But they have the enormous lawn!
Zach:Its rude.
Its like,Oh, you sleep here?Go to a venue, get a country club.
Julie:That section starts with The bar mitzvah ceremony was a rousing, unmitigated success.
Flawless, complete triumph for a family that endured a difficult year but had gotten through gracefully.
So youre just not gonna tell people that the patriarch of the family died?
Kathryn:This is a narrator problem.
Im not sure how Im supposed to read the tone of that line.
Julie:We need to talk about the other big ending piece, the factory burning down.
That was way too much for me.
Again hitting you over the head with the symbolism.
This is the shitty, bendy truth of how that could actually play out.
And she didnt have to be fully a character because shes losing it.
So instead she can be this Greek-chorus figure.
She was angry then sad then losing it.
Whoever plays Ruth is going to win an Emmy for that scene.
This was a dialogue scene that really felt juicy and fulfilling.
How did the diamond reveal land for you?
Why did we have to go through all that for things to arrive back at the status quo?
Why did anyone in this book get to have anything remotely like a happy ending?
Theres no precedent for it.
All of them feel, when they realize the money is gone, this moment of relief.
So the terrible ending is that they still have it.
Zach:The diamonds felt like another made-for-TV moment because its so visual.
You cant let them break cycles.
I found that really beautiful.
Kathryn:And theyre gonna have to restructure it.
You would have to balance the kids more.
But Jennys is her whole life.
The actress playing Jenny is going to have to play someone in high school through age 37.
Also, I just wanted more Phyllis, the character who is dictating this entire familys existence.
She was such a caricature and there just wasnt enough space for her.
Zach:I could have read a lot more about Ruth and Phyllis becoming close.
I found it really compelling that they were forced to, that Ruth became her in ways.
Zach:I was never offended by the nose-job stuff.
I thought it was funny every time and true to the way I grew up.
The pressure of everyone having to get another nose job has not been put into words this well.
It was a fun book to whiz through really quickly.
Kathryn:When the narrators voice hits, it really hits.
This sense of it being so readable that is why.
Jason:We didnt really get into the title of it.
I liked the way that it twisted and turned and constantly fell in on itself.
It started off as an anal-sex joke Taffy clearly thinks that anal sex is very very funny.
It is brought up many times as a punch line.
But I did think that the constant twisting around in the title was good.
That was a little cliche, and Im surprised an editor did not catch that.
Julie:Im probably gonna remember the Beamer stuff, unfortunately.
The absolute chaos and stress of reading that while I had the flu was really a mind-altering experience.
