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 and 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—that is, 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, Andrew Lipstein's Something Rotten proves that sometimes to be kind you have to be cruel beyond belief.
Genre: Literary Fiction
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 and 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—that is, 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, Andrew Lipstein's Something Rotten proves that sometimes to be kind you have to be cruel beyond belief.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Something Rotten is (characteristically, for this author) an irreverent book; often funny, at times caustic. Andrew Lipstein's refreshingly frank third novel probes the more discomfiting questions--about marriage and fidelity, fathers and sons, cancel culture and propriety, sex and gender, ambition and motivation--of modern life." - Rumaan Alam
"Andrew Lipstein's Something Rotten follows a man who's recently been canceled--a word that had 'long become meaningless . . . a relic from another time, like yuppie, hipster, millennial'--and his exhausted wife as they flee New York with their baby for a summer in Copenhagen. There, Lipstein weaves a twisty tale exploring masculinity, deceit, and love with cutting precision." - Anna Dorn
"A riveting, original story of fatherhood and masculinity and the ways our cultural narratives can deform both. In pursuit of deeper truths, Lipstein fills his book with psychological insight, surprising twists, and gorgeous writing." - Lexi Freiman
"What begins as a summer escape ends as a trial by fire as a young couple grapples with their biggest mistakes, their most heartbreaking inner demons, and their sneaking suspicion that the way they've been living is entirely wrong. A bold and riveting new novel about the search for truth when truth lingers maddeningly out of reach. I loved it." - Nathan Hill
"Something Rotten is an outraged and up-to-the-minute satire of American masculinity and nationalism that cleverly uses its setting--Copenhagen, Denmark--as a dark mirror to America's psychoses. A funny, moving, and surprising bicontinental novel." - Karan Mahajan
"Few novels are willing to confront the stormy waters that lie between personhood, parenthood, the imagined life, and reality. Our best novelists have it all right in front of them, if they possess the talent to look up and see. There may be something rotten in the state of Denmark, or the state of manhood, but the net result in Something Rotten is a book about a vacation that is both outrageous and very funny. Sometimes, in these ultra-serious times, we are apt to forget that fiction, in its origins, is a comic form. Andrew Lipstein provides a reminder, and his latest novel is a brilliant antidote to the nonsense of now." - Andrew O'Hagan
"Andrew Lipstein's Something Rotten follows a man who's recently been canceled--a word that had 'long become meaningless . . . a relic from another time, like yuppie, hipster, millennial'--and his exhausted wife as they flee New York with their baby for a summer in Copenhagen. There, Lipstein weaves a twisty tale exploring masculinity, deceit, and love with cutting precision." - Anna Dorn
"A riveting, original story of fatherhood and masculinity and the ways our cultural narratives can deform both. In pursuit of deeper truths, Lipstein fills his book with psychological insight, surprising twists, and gorgeous writing." - Lexi Freiman
"What begins as a summer escape ends as a trial by fire as a young couple grapples with their biggest mistakes, their most heartbreaking inner demons, and their sneaking suspicion that the way they've been living is entirely wrong. A bold and riveting new novel about the search for truth when truth lingers maddeningly out of reach. I loved it." - Nathan Hill
"Something Rotten is an outraged and up-to-the-minute satire of American masculinity and nationalism that cleverly uses its setting--Copenhagen, Denmark--as a dark mirror to America's psychoses. A funny, moving, and surprising bicontinental novel." - Karan Mahajan
"Few novels are willing to confront the stormy waters that lie between personhood, parenthood, the imagined life, and reality. Our best novelists have it all right in front of them, if they possess the talent to look up and see. There may be something rotten in the state of Denmark, or the state of manhood, but the net result in Something Rotten is a book about a vacation that is both outrageous and very funny. Sometimes, in these ultra-serious times, we are apt to forget that fiction, in its origins, is a comic form. Andrew Lipstein provides a reminder, and his latest novel is a brilliant antidote to the nonsense of now." - Andrew O'Hagan
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