Fleishman is in Trouble

By Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Random House, 2019, 376 pages
Reviewed by Julie Bookman, June 16, 2020

I bet that many of us lucky enough to be selected for This Email Group! are types who follow certain bylines. I have for many years had a thing for Taffy B-Akner. Before she got on at The New York Times a couple of years ago, she did some cool pieces for GQ, for example.

Who might recall her interview with Bradley Cooper when “A Star is Born” came out? A whole new way to do a profile piece, especially when your main subject refuses to say anything. If interested, here ’tiz: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/movies/bradley-cooper-a-star-is-born.html

But back to “Fleishman” (a longlist finalist for the National Book Award): B-Akner is a dandy storyteller, always in firm control. I can’t imagine anyone being bored while reading this.

It did drive me crazy, wondering for the first third of the book, who in the heck was telling the tale . . . but the identity of omnipresent narrator is eventually revealed, and that person also figures into the overall story, which involves a unique exploration of and take on feminism itself.

I adored the main character, Toby Fleishman (such a good egg!), a liver-specialist doctor whose social-climber wife, Rachel, has little respect for him, muchly because she makes buckets more money (and therefore she calls the shots).

The story follows the unraveling of their 13-year marriage. Toby is the only doting/engaged parent, so it kills him to not get equal time with their kids. (Then again, he discovers dating apps and sexting, so there’s that. And all that stuff’s equal parts sad and hilarious.)

But, one day, in the dark hours well before dawn, Rachel drops off the two kids with Toby — and never returns.

While I was wholly into this story while reading, I confess that I quickly forgot all about it. The author is now at work on adapting “Fleishman” for a limited FX series.