Dear Great Book Guru,  Every place I go in the last week people are talking about a new book set on Long Island about a kidnapping that took place fifty years ago. Have you read it and -if so- would you recommend it?  Lover of All Things Long Island

Dear Lover of All Things ….. Yes- I just finished Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s newest novel LONG ISLAND COMPROMISE and what an epic tale she tells.  At the core of the book is an actual  kidnapping with a fictionalized account of its aftermath on the lives of  Carl Fletcher -the victim, his wife, mother , three children, and their entire secular and religious community. The story actually begins decades before the kidnapping - during World War II when the Fletcher patriarch is saved from certain death and his fortune assured by a chance encounter in Europe. He arrives in New York, opens a plastics factory, and the family settles in the affluent North Shore village of  Middle Rock- closely modeled on Long Island’s  Great Neck. Their wealth grows as does their stature in the community. Traumatized by the kidnapping, each family member gets to tell his/her story and we quickly realize that no one has escaped the brutality  of the original crime. The community too is harmed irreparably with its realization that religion,  money and status offer no protection from life’s calamities. Ultimately, the myths that the Fletchers have based their identity also collapse and each family member must confront long hidden truths. Highly recommended!