Judith's Reviews > Long Island Compromise

“Long Island Compromise” begins with the kidnapping of Carl Fletcher from his grand estate in Long Island, where he runs a styrofoam factory founded by his father, a Polish Jewish immigrant. At the time of the kidnapping, he had two sons, Nathan, 8 years old, and Bernard (“Beamer”), 6 years old, and a pregnant wife. After his wife, Ruth, delivered the ransom a week later, he was released but his life and those of his family would never be the same. His children, including Jenny, the daughter born several months after the kidnapping, grew up to be under performing anxious people.

The book is divided into sections focusing on the life of each of the three children and Ruth. The chapters consisted mostly of long, meandering, stream of consciousness internal monologues of each of the characters with an occasional bit of dialog thrown in to break up the tedium of the narrative. I found this narrative style detracted from the story and bogged it down into unnecessary detail. In fact, I was so bored that if I hadn’t received an ARC of the novel and felt compelled to finish it as a result, I would have DNF’d this book at 10%.

I may be in the minority in preferring books with dialog and less “telling,” because otherwise the book could have been interesting. The characters were well-drawn and when there was interaction and dialog the story was less dull and slow moving. And the premise, that the children were dysfunctional, not just because of their father’s kidnapping but because of their life of privilege without responsibility or hardship, was well established by the storyline.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for providing an ARC of this novel in exchange for my honest review.