Long Island Compromise By Taffy Brodesser Akner

When Carl Fletcher, the heir to a Styrofoam fortune, is abducted outside his Long Island estate, in 1980, his wife, Ruth, withdraws two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from the bank as easily as if she’s getting a coffee to go. She delivers a briefcase with the money to a baggage carrousel at J.F.K. Airport, and, within minutes, Carl is dropped outside a Mobil bathroom, drenched in piss, vomit, and relief. The novel, Brodesser-Akner’s second, traces the aftereffects of the kidnapping on Carl and Ruth’s three children, who grow up to squander the fortune their self-made grandfather painstakingly accumulated. Brodesser-Akner names this state of affairs the Long Island Compromise: people born poor will struggle but be resourceful, whereas those born rich will turn into basket cases but never have to wonder how they’ll pay the therapist.