Something Rotten
A Novel
by Andrew Lipstein
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Pub Date Jan 21 2025 | Archive Date Feb 21 2025
Description
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.
A Note From the Publisher
Andrew Lipstein is the author of Last Resort (2022), The Vegan (2023), and Something Rotten (2025). He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and three sons.
Advance Praise
★ “Fascinating . . . Tense . . . 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.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“One of Lipstein’s gifts is his slipperiness—just as the reader feels a character’s foibles are being mocked or even pitied, the target shapeshifts, the moral questions twisting and dissolving . . . An interrogation of the nature of truth, virtue, and reality, cloaked as a page-turning novel of escalating crises.” —Kirkus Reviews
“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, author of Entitlement
“My favorite kind of book—a funny, wise, aching story about cross-cultural confusion and twenty-first century masculinity. It’s personal and global in equal measure.” —Jesse Eisenberg, actor and director
“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, author of Wellness and The Nix
“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, author of Caledonian Road
“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, author of The Book of Ayn
“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, author of The Association of Small Bombs
“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, author of Perfume & Pain
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780374613358 |
| PRICE | $28.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 352 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Reviewer 630346
Andrew Lipstein is becoming one of today's most reliably engaging authors. LAST RESORT is a modern classic, in my opinion, and THE VEGAN is an entertaining read tackling heady topics. SOMETHING ROTTEN, similarly, doesn't disappoint. It tells the story of Reuben, on the heels of a over-zealous/not totally justified cancellation involving an indiscretion over Zoom (featuring his wife Cecilie), off to a trip to Denmark with Cecilie, where they encounter her old group of friends who are mourning the recent health diagnosis of their friend Jonas. Also part of this friend group is Mikkel, who quickly takes Reuben under his wing. And off we go, the novel tackling questions of masculinity, ethics, home-coming/-making. Though neither of Lipstein's latest efforts, I think, match the muscularity of LAST RESORT, there's still something strangely reliable to a well-crafted novel like this one. My attention never wavered, but was kept enthralled by the dramas of Reuben, Cecilie, and Mikkel. Thanks to the publisher for the e-gallley.
Charlotte F, Reviewer
Something Rotten was a random pick from Netgalley, a sort of challenge for myself to read something that’s way out of my comfort zone. And well, who could resist that crying baby cover which really piqued my curiosity? It’s not something that I get to encounter every day what with the SFF books that I usually prefer to read.
I’m glad that I picked Something Rotten because it gave my brain a new stimulation that’s not focused on who’s gonna usurp someone’s kingdom or will the boy/girl of destiny fulfil the prophecy. Something Rotten is not your typical contemporary-couple story wherein the wife and the husband are trying to make their relationship workout. It’s more of a story of introspection, authenticity, getting back up and crawling towards the sliver of light at the end of a tunnel.
Most of the characters were hateful and despicable and yet, I finished the book in just one sitting. There’s just something perversely brilliant about following the lives of characters who are not only unrepentant and unaware that they’re repugnant beyond measure. We have Reuben, our male leading character and a popular NPR host, who had fallen from grace due to a scandalous social faux pas and thus, forced to become house husband out of pure shame. He’s prolly a good father but emotionally weak, susceptible to deceit and has the tendency to please everybody regardless if said people are good or bad influences. And then, there is his wife, Cecilie, who is still hang up with her ex-boyfriend, Jonas. For Pete’s sake, she just gave birth to her and Reuben’s child but she just can’t stop herself from acting like a wife and at the same time, mom to Jonas. And then, there are her Danish friends who spout about the importance of individual freedom but can’t be bothered to show some love and sympathy for their dying friend. If they are this detached about each other, why are they even making the effort to hang out together and just get into passive-aggressive fights? And don’t get me start talking about Mikkel who’s probably the most interesting character in this book but I don’t know if it’s even morally right to be charmed by him because….uggggh, why did he do it?
Reading Something Rotten is like watching a TV series about snakes and sharks trying to outmanoeuvre each other. It’s disturbing but in that gratifying way. There’s fulfilment seeing all of them, their lives thrown into chaos as they hop from one bad choice to another. And amidst all the chaos, I was humbled by the surprising twists in the story and concepts of authenticity, masculinity, and the socio-political issues that are directly affecting the lives of our characters. It’s this profoundness that hooked me to the story all the way to the end. Because at the end of the day, our lives are not just made by our choices but are also influenced by things that are happening around us and by the people we interact with. This is the central lesson this book is trying to convey.
All in all, I cannot say that this book is for everyone but its exploration of human values and relationships surely held a certain charm that made me stick with it until the end. If you are hungry for something unconventional with a lot of hair pulling on the side and an eye-opening read, give this book a try.
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