Second time lucky for me or for Fleishman?
Fleishman – the blurb
Finally free from his nightmare marriage, Toby Fleishman is ready for a life of online dating and weekend-only parental duties. But as he optimistically looks to a future that is wildly different from the one he imagined, his life turns upside-down as his ex-wife, Rachel, suddenly disappears.
While Toby tries to find out what happened – juggling work, kids and his new, app-assisted sexual popularity – his tidy narrative of a spurned husband is his sole consolation. But if he ever wants to really understand where Rachel went and what really happened to his marriage, he is going to have to consider that he might not have seen it all that clearly in the first place . . .
If at first you don’t succeed
I gave up reading this book about 2 years ago now after coming across the phrase ‘a zombie apocalypse for pussy’. I’m not a prude but really? Not for me I thought despite only being on page 20. Something made me hang on to it though and in a fit of trying to read my way through my massive TBR pile I picked it up again and gave it a second chance. Toby Fleishman is newly divorced and has just discovered the world of on-line dating. Along with it’s purple devil emojis, suggestive pics and sexual references. It is a lot but the book is so much more than that. Read PAST page 20 and you get to find out.
Marriage, divorce, ambition and the disappointment of mid life are all exquisitely examined by Brodesser-Akner. It’s surprising, enthralling, very New York and very 2020s (pre COVID). At times I wasn’t sure if I was reading a murder mystery, a mental breakdown or simply a study of a divorcee who never pictured himself being a divorcee despite begging his wife for years for a divorce. I won’t reveal too much for fear of spoilers but I enjoyed finding out where the book would take me.
I don’t know if I necessarily ended up liking Toby or his ex wife Rachel, but I did end up liking the book. Which just goes to show you should never stop at page 20. You just don’t know by that point what you are going to get. With Fleishman you get a very good read that will certainly give you pause for thought if you are married.
