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
"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
“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
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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.
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