"There was no other layer. There was no yearning. There was nothing beyond it. 'It's not New Jersey,' Adam said. 'It's life. It's being in your forties. We're parents now. We've said all we needed to say.' I began to cry. He patted my head and said, 'It's okay, it's okay. It's the order of things. Now we focus on the kids. We mellow with age. It's how it goes. It's not our turn anymore.'"
Early in isolation, I worked my way through Taffy Brodesser-Akner's "Fleishman Is in Trouble," which was highly recommended by The New Yorker. Fleishman is navigating a divorce, learning what dating looks like approaching the third decade of the 2000s ("These were women who would not so much wait for you to call them one or two or three socially acceptable days after you met them as much as send you pictures of their genitals the day before."), succumbing to work politics, and struggling to connect with his children.
"Toby hadn't dreamed of great and transcendent things for his marriage. He had parents. He wasn't an idiot. He just wanted regular, silly things in life, life stability and emotional support and a low-grade contentedness."
The book is undeniably hilarious, but in a terrifying, on-the-nose, too-close-to-home kinda way. New York City also serves as an overarching character, lending the story grit, cynicism, and personality.
Fleishman wrestles with familiar questions: How do you protect your identity in a marriage and family? How do you find value in your career without playing social-political games? How do you build and protect important friendships as an adult? "How miserable is too miserable?"
"And in our laughter we heard our youth, and it is not not a dangerous thing to be at the doorstep to middle age and at an impasse in your life and to suddenly be hearing sounds from your youth."
"It's crazy that the friends you're fondest of from your youth sometimes resemble people you would cross the street to avoid as an adult."
I encountered a few issues with the jarring first-person perspective at certain points, and the hops in both time and viewpoint could be disorienting. The first part of the novel ended on a massive and yet still-confusing reveal, which served as a bit of a red flag that the book simply going to go anywhere revelatory.
There is also an unearned rejection of love and affection toward the latter part of the book, and to me, the plot accelerates toward deterioration at that point. I actually found the book massively exhausting toward the end.
I found myself rooting for the titular character despite all the warnings from the author that this was a person incapable of self-examination. The roadblocks -- some of which felt forced -- thrown up on his journey almost turned him into a modern-day Odysseus.
All in all, "Fleishman Is in Trouble" was a worthwhile, sardonic read, with some touching moments sprinkled in. The book had a few too many unmerited contradictions in it for my liking, but it's a valid snapshot of married life in the troubled times we find ourselves in.
"You could just be sincere and earnest and find yourself there--maybe not meteorically, but you could find yourself there. You don't have to kneecap anyone else. You don't have to eat your young. You can just quietly do good work. The system still favors good work."
