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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.
"[F]ascinating...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
"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
This information about Something Rotten was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
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.
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