The Breakup
A Novel
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- Pedido anticipado
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- Se espera: 18 ago 2026
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- USD 10.99
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- Pedido anticipado
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- USD 10.99
Descripción editorial
A marriage cracks apart as a near-future United States redraws its borders in this penetrating and moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Fantasyland.
“This remarkable book contains multitudes. With wide-ranging intelligence and his trademark wit, Kurt Andersen has written an epic elegy for a country strained past its breaking point.”—Tom Perrotta, author of Ghost Town
Natalie and Asher’s marriage has long been marked by fault lines, quiet rifts in how they view their fellow Americans and navigate AI-suffused 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).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 seventeen-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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Andersen (Evil Geniuses) chronicles the aftermath of a near-future American civil war in this moving if overlong satire. Civil War II, as it's called, came about from a series of domestic terrorist attacks beginning in 2036. When fighting eased a couple years later, a majority of Americans were happy to support Disunion. What exactly this looks like, however, is still in flux in 2045, as states and even individual counties vote on whether to stay in the U.S. or join the newly formed Free American Republic, while occasional terror strikes leave people on edge. Amid this turmoil, married couple Ash Zimbalist and Natalie Frederick negotiate their own potential disunion when Natalie leaves Ash and their teen, Logan, for FAR territory in rural Tennessee, while Ash accepts a job with a trillionaire biotech entrepreneur in California, still part of the U.S. Though often funny, the novel's first half is weighed down by exposition, but it picks up speed when Natalie, Ash, and Logan reunite for a road trip through the eastern half of the former U.S. to visit colleges. Their individual storylines are often poignant, such as Natalie weighing whether to renounce her FAR citizenship to rejoin Ash or Logan exploring their gender identity. Politically astute readers who enjoy speculative deep dives will gladly go along for the ride.
