Something Rotten
A Novel
-
-
3.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $21.99
Publisher Description
Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR
Named a Top 10 Book of the Year by Our Culture magazine
Named a Publishers Weekly Editors’ Pick
A most anticipated book from New York • Bustle • Lit Hub • The Millions • Foreign Policy • Our Culture • & more
In his provocative, crackling new novel, Andrew Lipstein spins a wicked web through the heart of Copenhagen. You’ll question everyone and everything—even the very nature of truth.
Cecilie is a fed-up New York Times reporter. Her husband, Reuben, is a disgraced former NPR host and grudging stay-at-home dad. Neither can wait to flee New York to spend the summer in Copenhagen, Denmark, Cecilie’s hometown. But their vacation begins to turn inside out as soon as they land: Cecilie’s first love, Jonas, has been diagnosed with a rare, fatal illness. All of Cecilie’s friends are desperate to get him help—except for Mikkel, a high-powered journalist who happens to be the only one Jonas will listen to.
Mikkel’s influence quickly extends to Reuben, who’s not only intoxicated by Mikkel’s charm, but discovers in him a new model of masculinity—one he found hopelessly absent in America. As Mikkel indoctrinates Reuben with ever more depraved stunts, Reuben senses something is seriously amiss. Cecilie, too, begins to question who to trust—even herself. Drawn in by the gravity of the past, she can’t help but stray onto the road not taken.
A twisting, thrilling tale of loyalty and deceit, lovers and fools, Something Rotten proves that sometimes to be kind you have to be cruel beyond belief.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lipstein (The Vegan) explores contemporary masculinity and culture clashes in his fascinating latest. Reuben, an NPR host, loses his job after he accidentally leaves his camera running during a Zoom work meeting while having sex with his wife, Cecilie, a journalist for the New York Times. The pair regroup for the summer in her native Denmark, where Reuben feels rudderless. Not only has he been canceled and made a laughing stock, but his self-worth has been shaken to the core, leaving him with a "vague guilt that seemed to follow him like a scent." In this vulnerable state, he's drawn to Mikkel, a charismatic investigative reporter who has just exposed sexual assault allegations against the leader of Denmark's far-right nationalist party. Mikkel acts as instigator and sage to his timid American acquaintance, who is fascinated by the Dane's "ironic, combative, lewd, bacheloresque... brand of masculinity" and drunkenly accedes to Mikkel's urging to shave his head and get an ill-considered tattoo. Cecilie, meanwhile, reconnects with her ex-boyfriend Jonas, who has been diagnosed with a fatal brain disorder but, with Mikkel's input, is refusing the operation that could save his life. Mikkel's motives are opaque, and the question of whether he wants to help, hurt, or merely toy with the passive Reuben and Jonas animates Lipstein's tense narrative. The revelations, when they come, are satisfying, and meaty considerations of ethics and truth round out the novel's entertaining depiction of an American innocent abroad and his European Svengali. This razor-sharp morality tale is Lipstein's best yet.
