Taffy Brodesser-Akner on 'Long Island Compromise' (Get Lit)

Summary

Podcast Summary: All Of It with Taffy Brodesser-Akner on "Long Island Compromise"

Episode Title: Taffy Brodesser-Akner on 'Long Island Compromise'
Host: Alison Stewart
Release Date: December 9, 2024
Duration: Approximately 35 minutes
Podcast: All Of It by WNYC

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Introduction

In this episode of All Of It, host Alison Stewart engages in an in-depth conversation with acclaimed author Taffy Brodesser-Akner about her novel "Long Island Compromise." Recognized as one of the best books of the year by prestigious outlets including The New York Times and The New Yorker, the novel explores the intricate dynamics of a wealthy Jewish American family grappling with generational trauma and the complexities of extreme wealth.

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Overview of "Long Island Compromise"

"Long Island Compromise" centers on the affluent Fletcher family, whose wealth stems from a successful polystyrene (Styrofoam) business. Despite their financial success, the family is haunted by past trauma—the patriarch, Carl Fletcher, was kidnapped and held for ransom decades ago, leaving him with untreated PTSD. This incident has left deep scars, particularly impacting Carl's wife, Ruth, who devotes more time to caring for him than to their three children.

Key Characters:

• Nathan Fletcher: The eldest son, characterized by anxiety and neuroses. His financial mismanagement, including a failed investment with an untrustworthy friend, highlights his struggles.
• Beamer Fletcher: The middle child, a Hollywood screenwriter battling addictions to drugs, sex, and a dominatrix, reflecting his deteriorating mental state.
• Jenny Fletcher: The youngest daughter, who grapples with guilt over her wealth by donating her earnings and dedicating herself to union organizing, yet remains emotionally closed off.

The novel delves into how each sibling's identity and personal crises are intertwined with their family's traumatic legacy and the pressures of maintaining their wealth.

Notable Description by Alison Stewart:

"Each of these siblings is suffering from the legacy of their father's trauma, and when it appears that the Fletcher money might not be unlimited after all, the siblings are forced to examine how extreme wealth has shaped who each of them have become."
— [00:56]

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Author's Insights and Inspirations

Writing Process and Character Development: Taffy Brodesser-Akner revealed her meticulous approach to character development, emphasizing the emotional turmoil involved in crafting flawed, yet relatable protagonists. She shared an insightful anecdote about placing a "torture them" post-it note on her computer, symbolizing her commitment to challenging her characters despite the discomfort it causes.

Notable Quote:

"It's about the duty of the storyteller to do that, even though you don't want to."
— Taffy Brodesser-Akner, [03:07]

Generational Trauma and Holocaust Legacy: The conversation delved into the profound impact of generational trauma, particularly within Jewish American families. Taffy discussed how the Holocaust's legacy subtly permeates the family's psyche, influencing their behaviors and relationships despite the passage of time.

Notable Quote:

"In any Jewish story, and even in any American Jewish story, if you go far enough back, you hit this roadblock that is the Holocaust."
— Taffy Brodesser-Akner, [07:26]

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Themes Explored

1. Wealth and Its Discontents: The novel interrogates whether money truly equates to safety and happiness. Taffy explores the paradox of how extreme wealth can simultaneously provide security and create new vulnerabilities, as exemplified by the father's kidnapping and the family's subsequent struggles.

   Notable Quote:

   "If you have enough money, that makes you safe. But if it put you in danger and you end up getting kidnapped, are you then is it not safe to have money?"
   — Taffy Brodesser-Akner, [05:46]

2. Family Dynamics and Expectations: Through the Fletchers, the novel examines traditional family roles and the burden of expectations placed upon each sibling. The eldest's anxiety, the middle child's addictions, and the youngest's altruism paint a complex portrait of familial obligation and personal desire.

3. Identity and Autonomy: Jenny's journey of giving away her wealth underscores the quest for self-identity beyond financial status. Her actions question the true essence of freedom and the extent to which wealth defines one's existence.

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Audience Interaction and Q&A

Question on Character Torture: An audience member inquired about Taffy's approach to subjecting her characters to emotional torment, likening it to an "oppression Olympics."

Taffy's Response: She candidly admitted that she often feels personally drained by the characters' suffering, identifying Ruth as the most tortured character due to her deep self-awareness and internal conflicts.

"I always think of Ruth, the mother who is the only one with enough self-awareness to truly understand how bad things are. I think she has it worst."
— Taffy Brodesser-Akner, [03:49]

Process and Writing Habits: Another audience member asked about her daily writing routine. Taffy humorously described her chaotic writing environment, noting that her writing process is anything but structured, often taking place in unconventional settings like malls and school pickup lines.

"I write probably five hours a day, and on a day, I don't write, I feel like I died, which is not healthy. So you shouldn't ask these questions."
— Taffy Brodesser-Akner, [28:48]

Influence of Siblings: A listener compared the Fletcher siblings to those in Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections," highlighting the universal theme of sibling dysfunction. Taffy reassured that her characters are archetypal and not directly based on her own siblings, maintaining creative separation between her life and her work.

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Adaptation and Future Projects

Taffy Brodesser-Akner is in the process of adapting "Long Island Compromise" into a screenplay. She discussed the challenges of translating the novel's multi-perspective narrative into a cohesive television format, aiming to enhance character interactions during pivotal moments.

"The main challenge of it is that the kids don't interact very much until some crisis points. And I think it'll be neater to see them interacting."
— Taffy Brodesser-Akner, [33:35]

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Conclusion

The conversation concluded with reflections on the enduring impact of inherited trauma and the intricate balance between wealth and personal fulfillment. Taffy emphasized the novel's exploration of what defines one's identity beyond financial status and traumatic history.

Closing Remark by Alison Stewart:

"We spent the month reading her novel Long Island Compromise."

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a profound exploration of family dynamics, the burdens of wealth, and the lingering effects of past traumas. Taffy Brodesser-Akner's candid insights provide listeners with a deeper understanding of her characters' motivations and the thematic underpinnings of her work. Whether you're a fan of literary fiction or interested in the psychological complexities of wealthy families, "Long Island Compromise" promises to be a compelling read.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• "It's about the duty of the storyteller to do that, even though you don't want to." — Taffy Brodesser-Akner, [03:07]
• "In any Jewish story, and even in any American Jewish story, if you go far enough back, you hit this roadblock that is the Holocaust." — Taffy Brodesser-Akner, [07:26]
• "If you have enough money, that makes you safe. But if it put you in danger and you end up getting kidnapped, are you then is it not safe to have money?" — Taffy Brodesser-Akner, [05:46]
• "I always think of Ruth, the mother who is the only one with enough self-awareness to truly understand how bad things are. I think she has it worst." — Taffy Brodesser-Akner, [03:49]
• "I write probably five hours a day, and on a day, I don't write, I feel like I died, which is not healthy. So you shouldn't ask these questions." — Taffy Brodesser-Akner, [28:48]

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For those interested in delving deeper into the cultural and psychological landscapes of affluent families, "Long Island Compromise" is a must-read. Tune into All Of It for more engaging conversations about the intersections of culture, context, and personal narratives.

Transcript

[WNYC Studios]

WNYC Studios is supported by Audio Maverick. The history of radio crackles to life with Audio Maverick, a nine part documentary about one of the most visionary figures in radio, Hyman Brown. Explore the golden age of radio through the life of this famous New Yorker whose programs brought millions of families around their radios each night. Audio Maverick features archival audio and contemporary interviews with media scholars as we explore the new generation of audio mavericks that Brown inspired. Audio Maverick featuring new episodes monthly. Subscribe to Audio Maverick in your podcast app now or go to tv cuny.edu listener support @ WNYC Studios.

[Alison Stewart]

You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. The latest novel by author, journalist and screenwriter Taffy Brodesser Achner was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, the New Yorker, NPR and many more. It's titled Long Island Compromise. The story follows the wealthy Fletcher family, a group of Jewish American multimillionaires who made their fortune through polystyrene. That's Styrofoam. But money hasn't insulated this family from trauma. They are still reeling from the fallout of one dramatic event that happened decades ago. The patriarch of the family, Carl Fletcher, was kidnapped and held for ransom for a few days before being returned. He has untreated PTSD and has never quite recovered. His wife, Ruth, dedicates more time to caring for him than she does for her three children, and it is those children, each a mess in their own way, who are the true focus of the novel. Nathan, the oldest, is a ball of anxiety and neuroses. He's stalled at work and has invested all of his money with an untrustworthy friend. Beamer, the middle son, is a Hollywood screenwriter who is riding on the coattails of his more brilliant writing partner. He's addicted to drugs, sex and his dominatrix, and he's starting to really lose it. Jenny, the youngest child, feels guilty about the money she deposits in her bank account each month. She gives it away and dedicates herself to union organizing, but is really closed off from the world around her. Each of these siblings is suffering from the legacy of their father's trauma, and when it appears that the Fletcher money might not be unlimited after all, the siblings are forced to examine how extreme wealth has shaped who each of them have become. Long Island Compromise was our November get lit with all of it book club selection. Taffy Brodesser Acer joined us last week for a sold out event at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. Here's my conversation with Taffy. You used to have a post it note on your computer that said torture them.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Yes.

[Alison Stewart]

So why did you want to torture these characters?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

So I had this post it note on my computer. My kids always joke that it's about them, but it's not about them. It's about characters. It's about the way you sort of don't want to hurt anybody and the way the more you write about somebody, the more you're rooting for them and how hard it is to take a character where they need to go in order for you to bring them back. And so it's just this reminder that it's the duty of the storyteller to do that, even though you don't want to.

[Alison Stewart]

Who do you think you tortured the most in this book?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Oh my God, me. Me. I think that the most tortured. I think it's like an oppression Olympics. Like I don't even. I can't even think of who has it worse in this book, which is please read it, please buy it makes a great holiday gift. But I always think of. I always think of Ruth, the mother who is the only one with enough self awareness to truly understand how bad things are. I think she has it worst. That's what I'll say. That's my answer today.

[Alison Stewart]

Okay. You knew Jack Tysh, who went through this in 1974. This really happened to someone you knew?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Yes. To be clear, the whole book didn't happen to somebody I knew, but I do know somebody who was kidnapped out of his driveway in 1974. It was recently the 50th anniversary of his kidnapping. He was a friend of my father's. My father grew up with him and I sort of grew up. I was born in 1975 and I grew up knowing that someone I knew, wasn't close with and saw occasionally had been kidnapped. Which you think about it in various. Like it's exciting, it's a little sexy and then it's crazy and then it's sad. Like as you go through the sort of normal stages of development which I promise I went through on time at the appropriate. Like it means different things to you. And one day to imagine myself inside of that kidnapping was so devastating that I couldn't believe that this totally normal, nice guy who is functioning in the world. He travels, he knows wine, he collects things and he was once kidnapped.

[Alison Stewart]

When did you decide that this would be a good story?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Never. I still have not decided that. What happened was I was trying to tell the story, a story that answered the Question, is it good or is it bad to be from money? I know it seems like there's an obvious answer there kind of is. But just go with me here on a literature journey and I will tell that if the question of is, does money corrupt you? If you have too much of it, if you have it, if you never have to work for survival. I did not set out to write a story about a kidnapping. I set out to write that story and this kidnapping just kept coming into it. The vessel of a kidnapping for this question is too irresistible. If you are so safe, and if the question, by the way is, does money actually give you safety? Well, if you have enough money, that makes you safe. But if it put you in danger and you end up getting kidnapped, are you then is it not safe to have money? But then you get ransomed so you're safe again. So which is it? And the answer just keeps going in a circle and eating its own tail. So I don't know.

[Alison Stewart]

Well, it's really interesting because that all kind of gets put away after like 26 pages. 26, 27 pages.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Well, you counted. I did count.

[Alison Stewart]

But then you're into the generational trauma. That's when it really comes in. What did you read or learn about generational trauma that was useful in writing this book?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

I mean, I don't think I read anything in particular except that I read a lot of sort of old man Jewish authors. And the way that the. A generation back from me, the Holocaust ripples throughout every point of view, even if you never mention it, is kind of astounding to me. And, you know, in any Jewish story, and even in any American Jewish story, if you go far enough back, you hit this roadblock that is the Holocaust. And it is this sort of incredible thing. My mother and I recently watched a love story, the Isaac Bashevis Singer novel turned very, very great movie. It's about these people who left, who left Auschwitz and then came to Coney Island. And one day you're in Auschwitz and the next day you're in Coney Island. And how are you supposed to think about the world? You're at a bungalow colony upstate. How are you supposed to understand the breadth of the world if that could happen? And I've always been interested in that. Yeah.

[Alison Stewart]

Carl's father was a Holocaust survivor. And we learn in the book what he had to do to survive.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Right.

[Alison Stewart]

How did you think about the legacy of the Holocaust? How did it affect this family?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

I mean, I think that the legacy of the Holocaust in my family, nobody of that generation ever wanted to talk about the war very much, or maybe I didn't ask enough. I have one sister who asked, asked very often and got some answers. But I sort of took the lead of. I remember that there was a time I was too. I was older than I should have been when I understood that the thing that they obliquely referred to as the war was the Holocaust. The thing I was learning constantly in school, that's how sort of divorced in my life it was. But, you know, my grandmother had a friend who had numbers on her arm who. Who played cards with her, and it was sort of everywhere. And I guess the question is how did I think about how it rippled his family?

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

I guess it's just when I look at. I look at that as the difference between American Jews and American Americans. Right. Like, I don't know anybody who is still replaying the Salem witch trials in their head. But I do know people who won't leave a scrap of food or who will leave all the scraps of food because their parents wouldn't let them leave a scrap of food. And that's how I think of the difference.

[Alison Stewart]

Beamer, Nathan and Jenny.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Those are the children?

[Alison Stewart]

Yes. How did you decide who we would hear from first?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

I decided on Beamer because it was so fun to have. Oh, have you read the book Torture? Yeah, Torture them. What I liked was this setup of this kidnapping that they move on and they're all thriving and everyone is doing great. And then the next page is a man on all fours in a hotel room. I don't know. We're at the library. I don't know what else I'm allowed to say. I don't know who's on the live stream with people he has hired for the occasion of helping him reenact his father. Thank you, whoever you are in the front. You're my favorite reader. To reenact his father's kidnapping over and over every Tuesday at 9am that seemed to me delightful. Even though people say. Sometimes they say, oh, I put the book down then. And I say, that bothered you, not the kidnapping? I don't judge.

[Alison Stewart]

Was it always going to be three siblings?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

It was always going to be three siblings. Because two isn't enough. Because two couldn't make the point. And because in the families that I know, I'm one of four, but in the families that I know that are three, the. The three have this very, very typical birth order thing happening where the first is a high achiever, the second is a menace, and the third is just Trying to survive. Right? Am I right? Can anyone hear that? I have sisters here who are choking on their. Whatever they're having right now. So I got that right.

[Alison Stewart]

Which of the three children was the hardest to write?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Jenny. Jenny was the hardest to write. I don't even know if I got her that right. I have wondered if it's because she's the only girl that it's hard that. You know, I worked at GQ for a long time, and the world is very forgiving of Rye writing about men and ridiculousness about men. And because it was just this one girl, I felt more protective of her. And I wonder if I deprived her a little bit of her own ridiculousness in the name of that. I think I still have a ways to go.

[Alison Stewart]

How would you describe Middle Rock, Long Island?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Okay, so there's a. Does everyone know who here is from Long Island? There are a million of you. As will happen on the line outside, you'll say, I'm from Long Island. There's a part of Long island called, quite obnoxiously, the Gold coast of Long Island. It's the waterfront area in Nassau County. And it is sort of the place that the Jews who did well on the Lower east side emigrated. I'll use the word emigrated because you do have to cross some water and sort of set up shop in places like Great Neck and Rosslyn and those areas. And those were the first suburbs in America that reached a 50% Jewish population. And it was the first and for a good 30 or 40 year period, the last time that. That Jews felt that they had integrated and assimilated into America. And then you hear the story over and over from people from that area, my father's from that area, that, like, they leave and find out that the world isn't Jewish. Like, they can't believe how few Jews there are. Everyone's gotta learn.

[Alison Stewart]

What did you want to capture about that kind of wealth on the Gold coast?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

That, like, it is its own prison? The idea that there's something about striving that is the only happy way to have money. That money, when it seems. I mean, this is my theory because I have not been asked to test it out. That when you feel safe, when you feel financially able, when you have never had this sort of desire to. If you've never burned with the fear that you won't survive, all your money could be taken away and you never will. Like, there is no way to convince you that your survival is precarious and the inverse is true. And I think that there are People who are from those areas, they all were wealthy, but the ones that weren't the wealthiest felt poor and are sort of vexed. I hear that a lot after this book. Like I now understand why even though we were squarely middle class, I always felt very poor.

[Alison Stewart]

Some members of the Fletcher family weren't wealthy. Alyssa was one, Ruth was one.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Yeah, the ones who married in.

[Alison Stewart]

So what did they understand about money the other Fletchers do not?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

I think they understand how not worth the psycho babble. It is like that. It's such good luck to be solvent. It is so hard to find solvency in this world. And especially as we get further and further away from a solid middle class in this country. The idea of achieving the American dream, that if you could just sort of like if you jump and you just can hang onto the ledge and pull yourself up into it, I think they would not have the same patience that they have for those questions. If that makes sense. I don't know if I said that correctly, did I? Okay, yeah, maybe I don't know.

[Alison Stewart]

Who in the Fletcher family would have traded their wealth for a more middle class upbringing?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Jenny thinks she would have.

[Alison Stewart]

She does.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Jenny tries to give away her money. Jenny is the daughter and she feels like her whole question in life is who would I be without this money? Who would I be? And the question they all have is who would we be if this hadn't happened to us? The kidnapping, the wealth. An unanswerable question that we've all had about something in our lives. Right? Like you can think right now when I say that of the thing. You're thinking, what if that had never happened to me? Who would I have turned out to be? But Jenny decides to give. Jenny first decides her family fortune is from a styrofoam factory. She first decides to be an environmentalist. But when that doesn't upset her mother enough, she decides to be to lead the union. Instead of like she's leading a union at Yale where she was sent to become someone they could be proud of. But instead she leads a union which does upset her, finally upsets her parents because they have a non unionized factory. And she starts giving away the money just to see what it'll feel like, which is right, absurd. Like if like her mother, her sister in law, what they would, what they think of that she gives away her money. And then finally what happens is the money actually disappears because a venture capitalist comes in and takes over the factory. Their dividends dry up, they have no money and she becomes, when she realizes that she actually has no money. She is not free. She is paralyzed.

[Alison Stewart]

So Beamer, the son.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Yeah.

[Alison Stewart]

Why did you decide to make him a screenwriter?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Oh, that's a good question. Beamer is what we call a screenwriter with a bright future behind him. He wrote a few of those, like a kind of Die Hard, like a totally, like a problematic Die Hard about a guy who keeps getting kidnapped. And it worked in the 90s and now he's been struggling and struggling. When I first started writing the book, he was a studio executive. But when I finished, by the time I finished, by the time I was revising the book, I was making a television show about my first novel. And he became an excellent vessel for all of my insecurities about what a weird job that is and how terrible I was at doing it.

[Alison Stewart]

He's an addictive personality.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Oh, yeah. He's addicted to everything.

[Alison Stewart]

Everything.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

He has like 25 different expired nicotine patches all over his body and he stops at like 92 drive throughs on the way home. Like there's nothing. I think at some point I say he's an addiction addict. He's not an addict. He's an addiction addict. He's not an anything addict. He's an addiction. Like he'll take any addiction you have for him.

[Alison Stewart]

You're listening to my conversation with author Taffy Brodesser Acner, author of the novel Long Island Compromise. It was our November get lit with all of it book club selection. We'll have more with Taffy after a quick break. This is all of It. This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We continue my conversation with author Taffy Bredicer Achner. Her new novel Long island and Compromise was our November get lit with all of it book club selection. We had a sold out crowd at our live event and thanks to our partners at the New York Public Library, 6,357 people were able to check out a copy of the novel and read along with us. As always, our audience members had really great questions for our author. We'll hear some of those in a moment. But first, here's more of my conversation.

[WNYC Studios]

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[Alison Stewart]

With Taffy so poor Nathan, poor Nathan.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Poor Nathan, poor Nathan. Oldest brother.

[Alison Stewart]

He invests all his money with this sketchy friend who should have been obvious to him from the beginning that he.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Was a scam, right?

[Alison Stewart]

So why wasn't it obvious to Nathan, that this guy was scamming him.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Well, Allison, my therapist says that all of our choices are made in a tree of priority. And if your priority is to first get out of a horrible conversation and it's above stay solvent, then, yes, I will invest my money with you, my lifelong friend, who may or may not have been just fired for real SEC investigative reasons from Goldman Sachs. That becomes the priority. And then your therapist or mine would say you made a decision.

[Alison Stewart]

We don't really hear from Carl more until the end of the book.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Right.

[Alison Stewart]

Why did you make that choice? We don't hear about him. We don't hear about his ptsd.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Because I think that the journey a child has with their parent is that you blame your parents for all the ways things go wrong. And then one day you are asked to imagine what your parent went through, and this thing that's the kidnapping is just tossed off. It's a kidnapping. It's actually a good story. He survived. That's how lucky they were. And then you're asking to think actually, what happened to him? What did he not even tell his family about? And that's been my experience with the people I know, with my parents, with my grandparents, of suddenly saying, oh, my God, there was a war. Oh, my God, there was a divorce. Oh, my God, what was that like for you? And it's horrible to ask yourself that and to make your parents into real people.

[Alison Stewart]

Ruth.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Okay.

[Alison Stewart]

Is Ruth actually ashamed of her children?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Ruth is not ashamed. Well, Ruth is ashamed. Ruth hates her children a little bit. Ruth made this devil's bargain where she. She grew up poor in Brooklyn, and she never wanted her children to suffer the way she did. So she marries this guy who has this big estate, and she goes off to live with him, and she has these children, and like she wanted. They don't ever suffer. They don't ever want for anything. And then she turns it around, and she realizes she cannot relate to these children. She doesn't even like them. They're just a bunch of spoiled rich kids. And she can't believe that this is what she wanted. She says that a lot throughout the book. You wouldn't understand. You're a rich kid. That if you grow up poor enough, the dividing line between people is you're either a rich kid or you're like everyone else.

[Alison Stewart]

Let's go to the audience for questions.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Ruth has. Ruth is.

[Alison Stewart]

The zingers that come out of her.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Mouth, the snarky comments, are they you? Where did those come from? I guess they're all me. But I feel like Ruth gets to encompass this sort of, like, fourth wall. Can you believe this guy? Because she's the only. When you're writing a book about very wealthy people, you have to make sure that the reader has someone to hold hands with. Those zingers came very easily to me. I wonder if it is. It is the voice in my head that knows I'm ridiculous. Constantly commenting on my ridiculousness and just letting her free. Thank you. That's a good question. Thank you. Can you just tell us about your process? Like, do you write daily? Like, at two hours every day? Or you wait till you're finished, you stop, you start so on. I am asked that question so often, and sometimes it's from other writers, but mostly it's just a good question to ask a writer. I think that that is a chaos question because. Or it's a male question, because I. Which is not sure. Men. It's like, I've never had the luxury. I've never had the luxury of, like, being locked in a room or gazing out a window. I wrote, fleischmann is in trouble. At the Short Hills Mall in New Jersey, the Nordstrom has a bathroom with a couch where you can't get a signal. And I wrote half of it there. And I wrote half of it in the pickup line at school. And I wrote it while. If I even try to answer that question, I'll start crying. I write probably five hours a day, and on a day, I don't write, I feel like I died, which is not healthy. So you shouldn't ask these questions.

[Alison Stewart]

Okay.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Thank you. Thank you for. It is a good question, though. Thank you. Hi, how are you? Hi. I just want to. First compliment. As I started reading it, it reminded me so much of Jonathan Franzen's the Corrections. Thank you. Siblings, the dysfunction. And there's also a tremendous amount of inside baseball. I feel like for those of us who have been at a Shiva house or those of us who have been with their siblings. So I'm curious, with your three other siblings, how much have they looked to you to say, was that story about me? I think not at all. I don't think there's anything in here that my sisters would say. They're here. You could ask them after, but they're in the front. They're still in the front row, so that. That must mean something good. I. You know, it's funny. There are things that I write that are so autobiographical, and there are. This was. These people came to me whole as the. As archetypes of People, but I don't know these people. I think it's at a certain point, especially when you've written about yourself as much as I have, not just in novel writing and a TV show, but in the New York Times, I think that it's, you have to figure out how to write about other people or your career is over. And I think that does happen, that there are people who can only write about themselves and they have two or three books in them and I'm afraid of that. But I also made a career writing profiles. I write about other people all the time, so it's none of them. But maybe they'll say differently when you talk to them later.

[Alison Stewart]

We've got time for a few more.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

I'm curious about Andy Potemkin. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alison Stewart]

That's my next question. I got you on that one, Mandy. So, yeah, Beamer in his drug addled state is convinced Mandy would. Patinkin would be perfect for his movie.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Which he would be. So what is the actual. May I challenge you to ask a specific question? Did you need his permission? Did you need his permission to put him in the book? No. There's an excellent category of him. I hope he would get a kick out that I have learned all about. I did not need his permission, but I did a sort of gentlemanly heads up to him. I wrote to him. I wrote to him about when I had a galley. I wrote him a letter saying, hello, you don't know me and I have some news. I've written you into this novel because I am your biggest fan. The other piece of good news is that it's going to be a TV show. And I think of any actor that we would cast, you can name your price. I heard from him a couple of weeks later. I had the flu and what was I doing? I was watching an old season of Homeland and the email came through and it said, from Mandy Patinket. And I thought I had gone into a wormhole. And it was just a nice note saying, I am in receipt of your lovely note and your book. And I have not heard if he's read it. I have heard more than 50 times of people who have seen him overheard someone saying, hey, did you read Long Island Compromise? It is the mystery of my life right now. I hear he goes to Cafe Luxembourg a lot. I live near there. Every time I go, I think maybe today is the day. What will I do?

[Alison Stewart]

The Fletchers are mostly third generation, but we see the fourth generation is in the mix in the book.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Yeah. The children.

[Alison Stewart]

Yeah. What do you think's gonna happen to Beamer and Nathan's kids?

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

I don't think it's great. I think they grow up with this sort of non specific inherited drama. Like I understand inheriting trauma. I would be annoyed if I inherited someone else's inherited trauma, meaning like generation generation. But I think that they are kids who just like their parents but even are more afield from the people who they're further away from any sort of hardworking survivalist kind of person. And I think it's not great for them.

[Alison Stewart]

Where are you, I should say in writing the screenplay for Lyle and Compromise.

[Taffy Brodesser-Akner]

Oh, it's being written. It is being written. It's a very hard structure because the way the book is, it's like one kid's story, then another kid's story. The main challenge of it is that the kids don't interact very much until some crisis points. And I think it'll be neater to see them interacting. So I think that Long Island Compromise will be the book will be a sort of mood board of the, of the, of the, of the show. But we'll see.

[Alison Stewart]

That was my conversation with author Taffy Broderser Acker from our November get lit with all of it book club event. We spent the month reading her novel Long Island Compromise.

[WNYC Studios]

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