The Breakup

A penetrating and moving novel about a marriage cracking apart, set in a near-future United States that’s redrawing its borders, from the New York Times bestselling author of Fantasyland

Natalie and Asher’s marriage has been marked by fault lines, quiet rifts in how they see their fellow Americans and AI-drenched life in 2045. After twenty-three years together, and after surviving the two years of civil war in the 2030s, Natalie in rural Tennessee (part of the new Free American Republic) and Asher in San Francisco (in the now smaller United States). Apart for the first time since they met, Natalie and Asher’s relationship mirrors America’s own unraveling—confused, messy, painful, ambivalent, and impossibly intimate.

When Natalie and Asher are brought back into proximity while touring far-flung colleges with their 17-year-old, they find themselves on a road trip through a strange, uncertain new  American landscape, transformed by both the terrorist uprising and technology, all while dealing with the flux –– and resilience –– within their own family. They face the questions the nation has reckoned with for a generation: what differences are irreconcilable, and when is something broken worth saving?

Razor-sharp, ambitious, ranging from tragic to comic and brimming with imagination, The Breakup is a sweeping story where the personal and sociopolitical intersect in ways bracingly plausible, keenly insightful, and surprisingly hopeful.