Fleishman is in trouble (2019)
384pp, Fiction
Notes
2020-04-29
After the high concept surrealism of Moderan I switched to some mainstream character driven mimesis: Taffy Brodesser-Anker’s buzzy Fleischman is in trouble; I really enjoyed it, especially the second half. The first part of this tale of marriage disintegration is told purely from mr Fleischman’s point of view with only a few hints that (spoiler alert I guess?) he might not have the most reliable point of view. The narrative voice is somewhat confusing in this context, belonging to a friend of Toby Fleischman who has an almost supernatural degree of access to his feelings and thoughts at all times, as the novel progresses this becomes an increasingly baroque contrivance that strained my suspension of disbelief. But yeah, in the second half things properly kick off and Anker produces a really compelling picture of how social pressures, personal desires and individual self image create dissonance and how that can mess up people and their relationships and the people around them. If I have a complaint it’s that the broader social/ cultural pressures that the Fleischmans suffer under are only really glancingly questioned or examined, it felt a bit like my experience of watching Breaking Bad where I always felt that the worst crime was the healthcare system that screws everyone up but which is just the water that the plot swims in rather than anything to be commented on or critiqued.