The entire premise of the book upsets me, and I'm not sure if that's because it reveals an uncomfortable truth (I lean away from this one) or distorts an uncomfortable truth (I lean toward this). The narrator of the novel, Toby Fleishman's female friend Elizabeth, explicitly posits that readers are more interested in men, who appear to live meaningfully, while women and minorities' lives are circumscribed by their oppression. She suggests that one would have to "Trojan horse" writing about a woman by writing about it as the life of a man. Enter Toby Fleishman. A sensitive, caring father significantly out-earned by his ambitious, hardworking wife Rachel, Toby's own divorce attorney describes him as "the wife" in his relationship. This is not a perfect analogy. Fleishman is not a stay-at-home parent, he is, in fact, a successful doctor at a large New York hospital. He also has some stereotypical male traits like objectifying (see above), ignoring, and undervaluing women. Furthermore, he comes from a successful, privileged, Ashkenazi Jewish family (more on that later). Likewise, Rachel is not perfectly "the man,"--she suffers from a traumatic birth experience and is sexually harassed by her boss. But the apparent insertion of Toby into the text as the reverse Mary Sue, if you will, of Female Problems, to enable the author to point out discrimination against primary caregivers in the workplace and lower earners in the divorce court, feels disingenuous. Would a man in his position, who takes time off for his children, really be passed over for a promotion in such a bald manner? Maybe. But I doubt it.
A similar device is used in The Power by Naomi Alderman, where all of a sudden women develop an ability that makes them more physically powerful than men. Men take on the stereotypical personality traits of women and vice versa. However, this book bothered me significantly less, perhaps because The Power has a fundamentally different message. The Power claims that all humans have the potential to harm; we are all equally culpable, equally human. Fleishman Is In Trouble claims that femininity, specifically, whether that comes in the form of traditionally feminine personality traits and behaviors or in the form of having a female body, will doom you. True, it's more descriptive than prescriptive, but it certainly doesn't offer any solutions. Sensitive, caring Toby is passed over for the promotion, loses everything in the divorce, is judged for being a parent. Successful, workaholic Rachel is passed over for the promotion, loses the big client, is judged for being a parent.
Now, to amend my previous statements a bit. Neither Toby nor Rachel is ever truly "doomed." They are successful, White, high-earning career professionals on the Upper East Side. Their measure of poverty is whether or not they can afford a second car (in New York City) or a second home or a live-in nanny. They are never in danger of losing shelter, food, clothing, or even private school for their kids. In fact, their level of wealth seems positively staggering to somebody outside of that orbit, which, I would guess, includes most of the readers of this book. That's why I want to return to Toby's prominent Jewishness in the book. Rachel is also Jewish, or half Jewish through her mother, but was not brought up religious. Toby was brought up in a traditional home, and while it's nice to see those familiar rituals in a book, it worries me that other people are reading this depiction of an insanely wealthy Jewish person in a way that is not interrogated at all in the novel. It's scary to see Toby's Judaism as a marker of privilege with no qualifications. Maybe that's my bias talking here. I was raised to be scared of how outsiders view us. Certainly, Ashkenazi Judaism does function as a privilege in some circles, and it's true that many Ashkenazi Jewish people are successful doctors, but most are not nearly this level of wealth and it's rarely entirely without caveat. I fear it could be harmful that Fleishman plays into the stereotype.
Overall, I don't like what Fleishman stands for. If Toby Fleishman is a woman in a man suit, she should come out and start a new game. It's true that women are discriminated against in our society and traditionally feminine traits are looked down upon. However, we don't have to accept this deeply pessimistic box. We shouldn't have to hide behind men's bodies or traditional male characteristics or fictional male characters to be counted as having lives that matter.
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