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 her friends are desperate to get him help—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 to be kind you sometimes have to be cruel beyond belief.
"Something Rotten. . . cribs some of [Hamlet's] most delicious themes: the relationship between fathers and sons, the utility of virtue in a world that seems fueled by deceit, and, finally, what it means to be true to oneself when truth itself is up for debate. . . The real fun of Something Rotten though, lies in the concentric deceptions that Reuben and Cecilie both uncover and perpetrate. At hea
Melissa Kirsch, The New York Times
"A simmering psychological novel about modern masculinity that tiptoes into thriller territory."
