Welcome to the New Midlife Crisis
The novel ‘Fleishman Is in Trouble’ is one of a slew of new books examining our generation’s particular iteration of the midlife crisis
Like everyone on my Twitter feed, I recently read (and loved) Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s novel of midlife marital strife, Fleishman Is in Trouble. It was as good as everyone said it was: the murderously sharp observations, the nuanced characters, and what anthropologists should one day recognize as a near-complete catalogue of women’s workout tank-top slogans in the early 21st century.
I read it on my Kindle, which tallies the number of fellow readers who have highlighted certain passages of a book. In Fleishman, these highlights tell their own story of a readership more than a little familiar with the existential angst of middle age.
Like this one, on page 13:
“How miserable is too miserable?” (164 highlighters)
Or here on page 25:
“It was that he couldn’t bear to be with anyone who didn’t yet truly understand consequences, how the world would have its way with you despite all your careful life planning. There was no way to learn that until you lived it. There was no way for any of us to learn that until we lived it.” (312 highlighters)
