Fleishman Is In Trouble

Fleishman Is In Trouble begins with Toby Fleishman naïve to the catastrophes that lurk on the horizon. He can’t believe his luck. His phone is overflowing like a treasure chest, ‘aglow from sunup to sundown (in the night the glow was extra bright) with texts that contained G-string and ass cleavage and underboob and just straight-up boob and all the parts of a woman he never dared dream he would encounter in a person who was three dimensional.’

Toby has just come out of a marriage to Rachel, the mother to his two children, Solly and Hannah. From the sexless desert of marriage lies the chance to start again, to dip his toes in the dating pool and get things wet again. For Toby this openness is new and exciting. In the past, women didn’t assert their sexuality. They were passive, waiting for a man to open the door and to call their number. Now here in New York, they felt empowered, weaponised, able to call the shots - Toby can’t wait to bite the bullet. ‘There was something in him that liked the world as his dating app presented it, something that liked to think of New York as a city covered with people just having sex constantly.’

The online world spreads before Toby like a centrefold, a den of iniquity that he can’t wait to enter. As a skilled hepatologist he has worn the robes of Dr Jekyll for too long; in his phone he sees a backdoor, an exit that leads to alleyways promising dangerous excitement. But before he can get too hard at the prospect, he wakes to read a text message: his wife has come in the middle of the night – unannounced – opened his door, and left the kids ­– something not agreed in their separation. This is typical Rachel. Someone who puts herself first and her children second. The kind of woman who thought her husband, a respected doctor, was less than her because he made less money. This is so typical of Rachel. Rachel runs her agency like a devil in Prada, believing it acceptable to treat Toby  similarly. She has such little consideration for his life, his wants, his needs. Indeed, when she was out all hours wining and dining clients, it was him indoors, feeding and bathing children. And where is Rachel going? A yoga retreat. Well, never has a retreat been more offensive, scorching Toby’s plans, demilitarising his penis. 

The upside down image proves significant.

Toby’s rage towards Rachel only increases when she doesn’t come back after the weekend break. In fact, time ticks on and there’s no sign of her. She won’t answer her phone. Her assistant won’t reveal where she is. Rachel is M.I.A. She’s walked away from her duties, betrayed the children, deserted motherhood for her own selfish gains. Toby, meanwhile, has to balance fatherhood, dating apps and patients – he is, as the narrator presents him, a martyr; we completely root for him: the noble knight against the evil dragon.

When Toby goes into hospital he finds his team stumped. A husband has brought his wife in, but they can’t find what’s wrong with her. She was completely fine, just a little careless after her trip back from Las Vegas. Just a bit clumsy, knocking one or two things over, but nothing untoward. Toby knows the problem and wants to teach his doctors an important lesson: ‘Listen to your patient. He is telling you his diagnosis.’ Toby diagnoses it as Wilson’s Disease, a rare disorder that causes copper poisoning in the body. When it comes to patients Toby is an excellent listener; however, what we realise over the course of the book is that the same might not be said for friends, children and – importantly – Rachel.

Herein lies the intelligence of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s novel. From the start we are completely on the side of Toby, but feel differently when Libby, narrator/friend of Toby, and Rachel’s stories are revealed. This upending isn’t done at the expense of Toby (I still liked him and sympathised with him), yet it makes you appreciate how subjective his view is, indicative perhaps of most male’s view: a woman should celebrate my achievements. Only men have mid-life crises. A woman’s ambition should end with children. Libby’s narration begins with hagiography, canonizing Toby as a modern Saint, but as the book unfurls she downgrades Toby to human being, not wholly good, not wholly bad.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner. Photo: Ali Smith/ The Guardian.

Fleishman Is In Trouble begins as a satire on our technological world and becomes an examination on gender and marriage. It is one of the funniest and smartest books I’ve read in a while. Read it and weep - with laughter and sadness.

Fleishman Is In Trouble is available from all good bookshops.