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If you succeed in the tedious two - thirds of "Fleischman in Trouble," you'll find it's worth it
On the face of it, the acclaimed "Fleischman in Trouble" is another book about a crumbling American family.
Despite this, it is not easy to pass the first part of the book.
The first 200 pages are run lazily, even if they are full of wit.
Only in his last trimester is he starting to get really good
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Taffy Broadser-Ackner
David Rosenthal
Sunday, 12 September 2021, 08:57 Updated: 09:06
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It is good to draw the low points of a relationship.
Taffy Broadser-Ackner (Photo: Eli Smith)
A survey conducted in September 2020 shows that one in three New Yorkers has experienced symptoms of depression since the corona began.
The plague can be blamed, but it is better to look at the data that came before it - and they are very similar.
In 2018, the NBC network published the results of a study, according to which 41 percent of the city's residents suffer from sleep disorders and 32 percent from obesity.
New York, for its glittering image, can be a very lonely place.
"If caught between the moon and New York City, the best thing you can do is fall in love," Christopher Cross mourns in the famous song "Arthur's Theme."
And what if you have no love in New York City?
Many books, plays and films have been written over the years about Jewish-New York life, combining a rich sex life with depressing sadness, a spiritual intellect and emotional emptiness, from "What oppresses Portnoy" and Philip Roth's other chain of books, through Ralph's "Fritz the Cat" Buckshee and Woody Allen's intricate films to the most modern work written in the pre-Corona days - "Fleischman in Trouble" by New York Times journalist Taffy Broders-Ackner.
Toby Fleischman is a 41-year-old doctor whose relationship with his wife Rachel has apparently reached a point of no return. If it's not enough that Rachel abuses him with her rigid attitude and patronage (as a player agent she earns more from him, allowing her to control the impending divorce agreement), she also disrespects the custody agreement between them and one bright day disappears. Toby on the one hand tries to enjoy the reunion, fucking anything that moves and indulges in the freedom that is supposed to come, but the freedom does not come because he is now stuck with two children who have not yet digested the fresh divorce, and a lot of angry feelings towards his new estranged wife.
On the face of it, this is another innocent book about a crumbling American family, which fails to contain the technological advancement, the wealth of information and the eternal pursuit of money, but rather at the beginning of "Fleischman in Trouble" we become acquainted with an interesting technique used by Broders-Ackner. The point of view is, so to speak, of an all-knowing external number, and suddenly the use of a female first-person begins, revealing that it is in fact a witness number. Later we will discover that this has much more than one meaning, several implications for the character of the book, questions about its true protagonist and ping-pong of identification with the characters.
This novel garnered many superlatives in the US after it came out in 2019. Here it landed very recently, at a time that can be defined as perfect. After all, the Corona period may not have created the difficulties in marriage, but it certainly sharpened and highlighted them. Troubles "hit the target even before, in contemporary reading it seems to have been actually written for this period. Maybe Toby would not have fucked in the same amounts, maybe Rachel would have had a harder time escaping, but the essence of the characters, character and difficulties remain the same.
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To the full article
A funny and sad book, well written and witty.
"Fleischman in Trouble" by Taffy Broadser-Ackner (Photo: Eli Smith)
Despite this, it was not easy to get through the first part of the book. The first 200 pages are run lazily, sometimes with unnecessary fuss. The role of Elizabeth Epstein, the narrator, seems completely unnecessary until it turns out - as expected, it must be said - that he has played a significant part in shaping the plot.
On page 228 she reveals how her husband and she watched a spoken word series "that everyone said it was getting really good at the end of the third season, but we were only in the second season and had existential anxiety over the question of whether to watch a promising series yet. We agreed that the answer is yes. Without, and perhaps with intent to, Broders-Eckner provided evidence for her book. "Fleischmann in Trouble" is a novel that is starting to get good and even excellent only in its final third, just like the same series. The starting difficulties were not simple and at one point I wondered where all this was taking me. The turnaround, and not by chance, occurred when I realized that just like in a thriller and in life in general, beneath the surface things are not as they seem at first.
Here it must be said fairly: This novel is full of wit even in moments when the difficulties of success are particularly great.
Broadser-Ackner does well to chart the low points that affect the relationship of all of us - anger, resentment, lack of inclusion and lack of understanding and empathy for the couple's point of view.
"Divorce does not make us the least married," says one of the characters, reminding us all of the well-known saying that one should not know with whom to marry, but with whom to divorce.
Is "Fleischman in Trouble" a "masterpiece," as they called it in NPR?
Not sure.
This is a funny and sad book, well written and witty with a covert and unobtrusive feminist mantra that permeates slowly.
I still think the first half is long and trying to go too deep.
But as the author herself wrote - hope is a good thing.
When you get to the second part, you find that it also pays off.
"Fleischman in Trouble" / Taffy Broderser-Ackner.
From English: Tal Artzi.
Azure Publishing, 378 pages.
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