symptomatic diagnosis
This Week in Reading:
Fleischman Is In Trouble by Taffy Brodesser- Akner
I was first introduced to Taffy Brodesser- Akner by way of her NYTimes Magazine profile of Gwyneth Paltrow; a celebrity profile so brilliant I do earnestly believe it deserves a Pulitzer. From there it was her profiles on Bradley Cooper, Jonathan Franzen, Tonya Harding. In all of her magazine pieces she is both critical and empathetic, bringing humanity to even the most out of touch, caricatured celebrity. Taffy is always embedded into the interview, whether she is relapsing into chain smoking with GP or arguing with Bradley Cooper about the interview she is in the midst of. She is truly, one of the greatest journalists of our time.
So I was eager to pick up her first novel, Fleischman Is In Trouble. The novel is about Toby Fleischman, an Upper East Side doctor going through a gnarly divorce. In comparison to his agency executive ex-wife and the finance dads at his children’s elementary school, Toby Fleischman, a doctor with a six figure salary, is essentially a loser. It is a testament to Taffy’s time in celebrity journalism that she is able effectively portray a literal doctor as an unambitious schmuck; we understand ourselves in comparison to our peers, not in comparison to the world.
Despite my devout respect for Taffy, I did not love this book as much as I wanted to. The writing is excellent, full of the tangential asides and character descriptions that I have come to associate with her. I didn’t dislike any particular part of the novel, but it failed to be more than the sum total of its (admittedly good) parts, and some plotlines, such as Fleishman’s exploration of online dating and the overarching third person narrator didn’t enrich the book at all for me.
At its core, the novel is about divorce and the ways in which we construct and change narratives to fit the ending of the story. Divorce forces you to contend with the ideas you had about yourself and what the rest of your life looks like. Though this devastation is deeply personal, people going through divorce are frequently asked to explain the intricacies of their relationship publicly.
“Of course Cyndi Leffer wanted information. Everyone did. The conversations were always artless, and they were always the same. The first thing people wanted to know was how long things in the marriage had been bad for: were you unhappy that night at the school gala, when you were showing off your college swing dancing lessons? Were you unhappy at that bat mitzvah when you took her hand and kissed it absentmindedly during the speeches? Was I right that at parent-teacher conferences when you stood by the coffee and she stood by the office checking her phone you were actually fighting?”
A former classmate of mine is getting divorced and I need to know everything about it. I want to know who is keeping the dog, the house, the stuff. What happened? Did someone cheat? I’m overcome with a morbid curiosity, cut with genuine sadness and a splash of fear. We snoop around failed relationships as if to inoculate ourselves from heartbreak—expressing concern while also compiling a list of symptoms to cross reference against our own relationships. Did they fight more than us? Do we communicate better than them? Have we managed to keep the romance alive under all of the weekly logistics and chores of keeping a household afloat? They seemed happy— do we seem happy? Are we happy? Our relationship must be fine if we are having this much sex, right? Is this a lot of sex? Is this a normal amount of sex?
But every relationship is an island. While some problems are so obvious they can be seen from shore (a smoke signal of abuse and public bickering rising fast and black into the sky), most aspects of a relationship, good and bad, can’t be seen from the outside. Arguments so personal and heart wrenching that you can’t bear repeat them to a friend, long simmering resentments that run like a dark undercurrent below double dates and birthday parties and home-cooked dinners. Sometimes two people change in fundamental ways, and sometimes they don’t change at all and realize that their incompatibilities will never be resolved. Relationships are islands in positive ways, too. Nobody sees the goofiness and sweetness that happens early in the morning, after the first alarm. Inside jokes, tender glances, secrets, surprises— all of this lies beyond the public eye. Friends’ boyfriends whom I have deemed merely fine might be supportive and caring and sweet behind closed doors, might see my friends in ways that even I cannot.
The thing is-- all relationships start out happy. And then, over time, they falter, perhaps fail. Those of us who have good ones may just make it into forever— but most people, at some point, think their relationship is one of the good ones. That’s why we ask so many questions about break ups— we want to know how that couple got from point A (happiness) to point B (unhappiness) in hopes that we can avoid ever making the journey between those two points. We ask so can reassure ourselves that we aren’t like them, we aren’t that couple. Their despair is not predictive of our own trajectory. And in truth we aren’t like them—each relationship is its own island, complete with its own ecosystem.
I feel a great deal of certainty about my current relationship. I feel quite sure that this is it for me. But that forces the question: do all of those millions of relationships that have (or will) fail feel this sure and good once? Or is this special— are we inherently more compatible than the majority of couples and therefore will be able to forge past the typical arguments and irritations and rough patches?
Here is the other thing about relationships—in traditional monogamy, 100% of our relationships have failed before the one we are currently in. All of us are batting zero. It is clear the ways we have contributed to our previous relationships’ demise, and it’s easy to imagine that those same problems will doom this new one. Statistically, the odds are not in love’s favor, as anyone familiar with the American divorce rate can tell you. But statistics really aren’t the point, are they. Love is not a risk management assessment. It is an act of faith.
Further Reading:
I highly recommend all of Taffy’s magazine pieces. Besides the profiles linked above I have returned to her Real Simple piece, “How Taffy Brodesser-Akner Thrives on Stress,” multiple times.
On the topic of divorce, I saw Marriage Story last night and thought it was an incredibly beautiful, touching film, with just enough humor to balance the dark subject matter. I’d highly recommend.