“Long Island Compromise” is a heavily populated satire with more cul-de-sacs than the whole of Nassau County; but all those narrative asides about jealous neighbors and forays into Zelig’s harrowing tale of survival propel the novel. This is because when Brodesser-Akner dives, she does so without making a splash, seamlessly entering the mind of Jenny, who fetishizes freedom when she already has it; or Bernard, who sincerely wonders: “Did either of them notice that while Charlie typed, Beamer stood behind him, saying ‘Yes, right. Exactly!’ but did not also contribute any new ideas?”
Brodesser-Akner is empathetic to her characters’ pathological inability to know themselves, but she is also merciless when it comes to the idea that acknowledging confusion is not enough. Zelig came over on a boat and it wasn’t the Mayflower, so are they still victims when their privilege is undeniable? Unable to answer this question in the mirror, they seek validation from co-workers, lovers and partners. Oh, how they long to be good. Or if not good, better. Or if not better, bearable.
They hail from a generation for whom the Holocaust was both last week and a colloquial cudgel (“Hitler would have loved your help, Jennifer,” Carl’s mother says to her granddaughter), a generation whose grandparents came from nothing unless you count mortal danger as something. Brodesser-Akner does not defend the myriad manners in which these three fumble the inheritance of suffering, as much as she seeks to define their crisis. She strives to dig a hole through the clichés and, for the most part (this reader could have done with less rhinoplasty and I.B.S.), she comes out the other side with a dynamic story about an American family.
Fresh off adapting “Fleishman” for television, Brodesser-Akner incorporates screenwriting tropes into her prose (“CUT TO: Within a few minutes, he was back in his car”), sometimes in ways that feel less than intentional. After Carl is kidnapped, setting the town aflutter, a woman in an “avocado-colored kitchen” uses “her matching avocado-colored long-corded landline phone” to call a neighbor with a “mustard-colored” version of the same setup. Cue the split-screen. “The Royal Tenenbaums” in a yarmulke, or so a studio pitch might go: You’ve got the younger brother flirting with self-harm, the brilliant but icy sister and the eldest, a father to fearful twin boys whose joint bar mitzvah provides the culminating festivity of the novel.
The author also makes a few fairly transparent efforts to break up streams of dialogue toward the end. In the words of countless American children of the 20th century, Jewish or otherwise, her epidermis is showing. But the point of that joke is: Yeah, of course it is. All those well-timed twists, neat callbacks and tidy scenes are a mitzvah for this satisfying, touching novel. The talented Taffy Brodesser-Akner over here.
LONG ISLAND COMPROMISE | By Taffy Brodesser-Akner | Random House | 444 pp. | $30
