Fleishman Is In Trouble: A Tale of Divorce and Marriage

Just when you think everything that could possibly be done with the "traditional" marriage/divorce novel has been done, there's this: Journalist Taffy Brodesser-Akner's debut novel about a couple in New York City. It's a story that feels fresh and original, and it's utterly engrossing and often very, very funny.

Fleishman Is In Trouble is a novel primarily about marriage, yes. But it also takes on themes of ambition, modern parenting, gender roles both in marriage and the workplace, and life-long friendships and how they change. Is it fair or right that an ambitious woman who spends 80 hours a week at the office is often considered a poor parent? Is it fair or right that a man who handles the primary parenting responsibilities is considered to be lacking professional ambition? And when these questions create friction in a marriage, is it fair to even try to assign blame?

As the novel opens, Toby Fleishman, an early-40s successful NYC doctor and his wife Rachel, a VERY successful NYC talent agent are getting divorced. Their 15-year marriage has crumbled amidst pressures of jobs, kids, finances, and more, as marriages are wont to do. Rachel is a fiercely ambitious aspiring social climber, endeavoring to make nice with all the moneyed couples of New York. She works constantly, building from scratch her own talent agency after being passed over for a promotion (probably either because she was pregnant, or because she rejected the advances of her boss) at a former job. It's hard out there for a woman in the workplace!

Toby, meanwhile, has taken on the primary parenting duties, even amidst his busy schedule as a doctor. Most women would be pleased as punch being married to a successful doctor, but not Rachel. She constantly chides the fact that Toby's ambition doesn't match her own. His meager $235,000 salary isn't enough to help them build the life they "deserve" amongst NYC's elite, she thinks. So she takes matters into her own hands, getting him a job offer at a pharmaceutical company for a million-plus per year. But he promptly turns it down and is even angry she thinks he'd take it, having to compromise every reason he became a doctor in the first place. This episode is one of the nails in the coffin for their marriage.

But then, back in the real-time of the story, Rachel just disappears! She drops off the kids one morning for Toby's weekend, and heads to a yoga retreat, but doesn't come back. And she doesn't answer her phone. And her assistant won't say where she is. This is inconvenient for Toby for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it cramps his newfound style of dating and having sex with several women's thanks to the wonders of technology and his success with Tinder-like dating apps. And here we have another of the double-standards the novel takes some glee in pointing out: Is it fair that the nerdy, unsuccessful-with-women Toby has overcorrected to become a sort of playboy? Would society look down on a woman who does the same thing? And why does society look down on Rachel, who has also overcorrected from her childhood of being poor to want a lifestyle of excess and wealth?

All the while, the novel takes on an interesting trick of narration, which frankly, takes a minute to get used to, but ultimately works extremely well. The story is being told to us, almost as a long magazine profile, by Toby's college friend Libby who makes frequent appearances in the novel as well. Libby is a former magazine journalist who has quit her job to raise her kids. At one point, as Libby reflects on her on career, and how she was successful writing profiles of men for men's magazines (Brodesser-Akner also writes for GQ and ESPN Magazine), she discusses how she was able to finesse out these men's stories, but also tell her own between the lines. And that's what this whole novel feels like — it's Toby's story, but there is Libby constantly between the lines, relating her own challenges, and the challenges of many women, with gender issues in the workplace, and with parenting and marriage.

So as Toby continues to struggle with Rachel's disappearance, we are riveted to find out what happened to her — and of course we do, and when we do, her story just adds another layer of complexity to all these issues that aren't easy to parse in the first place.

This is such an engrossing story, and as smart and insightful as it is about so many contemporary issues, it's also very often laugh out loud funny. Brodesser-Akner loves making fun of the self-serious NYC moms who wear a never-ending supply of workout tank tops with flashy slogans like "Spiritual Gangster" and "Eat Sleep Spin Repeat" And she talks about Toby's online dating and sex life with unflinchingly hilarious insight. But read this both because it's funny, but also just a really great, incredibly well-written modern story. Very highly recommended!