They Lived Happily Ever After. Eh

I recently finished a fantastic book, “Fleishman is in Trouble” by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. It was recommended to me by my friend Amy, and I’ve shared the love with other like minded readers. This is the first work of fiction I’ve truly enjoyed in quite some time. I have been reading a lot of spiritual books that I love, but few things relax me and rightly engulf me like quality fiction. I need to remember that I’m just happier and less prone to agitation while engrossed in a solid read. It helps keep me balanced and at peace with being still. I’m not a science fiction or mystery gal. Not really historical fiction much either. I love in depth psychological journeys peppered with heavy doses of sarcasm, wit, self deprecation, and brutal honesty about regular people. Social satire is my fave. I love recognizing my own stuff in stories, the stuff people don’t always talk about freely, often because they don’t know how.

This novel is about a middle aged couple getting divorced in New York City. Oh, and they’re Jewish. All the references about the main character’s year abroad in Israel during college delighted me to no end since I remember mine like it was yesterday. The book gets into post divorce dating, an arena that is multi layered. Navigating that realm is like constantly crashing into a series of fun house mirrors. Distorted images of both yourself as well as those you meet and date are par for the course. Very little is as it seems because it takes a very long time, possibly never, to regain any semblance of clarity about yourself. And we only see outwardly as clearly as we see inwardly. Divorce is blinding. Recovery is a process, no matter how well your divorce went. The entire world is literally new. This humorous, very clever book helps those of us in the throes of divorce take our own lives less seriously. We aren’t the first to deal nor will we be the last. It’s good to laugh at ourselves and identify with the hilarious commonalities that come with this next act. We could all benefit from loosening our rigid views of ourselves. It’s all changing anyway.

Potential spoiler alert: the book ends in a way that leaves it to the reader’s imagination as to whether or not the broken couple reunites. I did not want them to get back together, despite the kids, history, and the initial seeds of love that brought them together back in the day. I’m a very romantic thinker and feeler. I’d never describe myself as a cynic. But these were two people who really came to despise each other over time. They each had their reasons which resulted in an unhappy, unhealthy couple who were simply unkind to one another. Their relationship lacked respect, tenderness, and true partnership (like most marriages I’ve personally seen). Not everyone belongs together even if they did at one point. It must be noted that I thought it insane when Sex and the City fans all over the world were dancing in the streets when Big and Carrie became official. I didn’t find that to be a romantic love story at all. I thought it was crazy. HE LEFT HER AT THE ALTER. WITH A BIRD ON HER HEAD. IN THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY. It was humiliating, as she railed at him. Carrie also cried, “I knew you would do this!”; how can anyone have thought this was the greatest love story of modern times?? He treated her like shit for years and she knew it. She expected it. None of this sounded like love to me. Would you let your daughter marry a guy she KNEW would leave her??
I have become protective over the enterprise of divorce. It’s very often the healthy, correct move. On both the individual and familial levels. It just very often comes to be that a couple can’t thrive while tethered to each other anymore. Many people are not meant to live every day together. Life is sooooo subject to change. It must and it will. The only certainty in life is change. If a husband and wife can ride out those changes together it’s amazing and beautiful. But if those changes lead to an underlying corrosion of their infrastructure over time, then the rust will take over the mechanism. Things won’t work smoothly, and then quite possibly not at all. A husband and wife who toss contempt back and forth over the children aren’t doing anyone any favors, especially said children. Marriages, as depicted here, can turn into hateful war zones. Passive aggressive warfare is just as damaging. When toxicity is unleashed and both people drain themselves with strategies on how to exist in an unhappy role, it’s probably best in many cases to set each other free. Freedom being the operative word. No one should live unhappily in an environment in which they aren’t respected and cherished, real or fictional.

This book was excellent. I really recommend it. And this particular reader is sticking to her ending of the story in which the main characters went on to flail, heal in messy fits and starts, and find the happiness they each deserved.