Something Rotten by Andrew Lipstein Review by Nicole Yurcaba

Something Rotten by Andrew Lipstein

Review by Nicole Yurcaba

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Publication Date: January 21, 2025

ISBN: 97803746113358

Pages: 340

Andrew Lipstein’s Something Rotten is the irreverent tale of Reuben—a disgraced former NPR host and grudging stay-at-home dad—and Cecilie—Reuben’s brilliant, Danish, New York Times investigative journalist wife. Reuben and Cecilie navigate the hardships and exhaustion of being new parents while never truly confronting the emotional and financial toll Reuben’s job loss inflicted on them. When Cecilie decides to finally take her maternity leave and visit Denmark for an extended period of time in order to relax, Cecilie’s close circle of Danish friends have other plans for her. One of their own, Jonas—who also happens to be Cecilie’s former boyfriend—has been diagnosed with arteriovenous malformation, a rare condition in which arteries and veins abnormally connect. Jonas receives a terminal diagnosis, and—much to his friends’ chagrin—refuses treatment, which launches all of them, including Cecilie, to intervene and convince him otherwise. Nonetheless, as each friend takes their turn hashing and rehashing Jonas’s diagnosis, their fractured relationships and marriages, their professional twists and overlaps all reveal themselves—and threaten the years-long ties that have bound one friend to the other.

The novel’s narrative structure, which alternates between Reuben’s perspectives and Cecilie’s, is the force that twists the novel’s psychological daggers deeper and deeper as the novel progresses. However, that structure is also uniquely deceptive. While it may, at first, seem that the novel is inherently Reuben and Cecilie’s story, what happens is a slow, churning unraveling that reveals it truly is not. Reuben’s narratives pit against Cecilie’s—a technique that buttresses their senses of isolation, abandonment, and otherness reinforced not only by each other, but also by others in the friend group. Reuben and Cecilie’s self-awareness—and often lack of—is what creates the largest revelations about the other characters. Through Reuben, the unpredictable and malevolent Mikkel, one of Cecilie’s friends, is idolized and placed on a hero’s pedestal, since Mikkel embodies the freedom, the debauchery, and the confidence Reuben wishes he could manifest. Via Cecilie, Jonas is portrayed as a misunderstood, albeit privileged, man for whom her romantic feelings have never really dissipated, and more than the other characters, she has a deeper resonance and emotional intuition with.

The structure embodies the nature of Reuben and Cecilie’s relationship, not necessarily pitting one against the other, but as clearly distinctive with individual ambitions, depressions, and conflicts frequently unexpressed. At one point, Reuben convinces himself is nothing but a “cuck,” a sense of self reinforced as Cecilie bulldozes headlong into the medical unknown with Jonas as she convinces him to go through with a procedure that could permanently disable him. The narratives—particularly Reuben’s—grow in length and depth, reflecting Reuben’s emotional, intellectual, and social connection with the unpredictable and debaucherous Mikkel. Reuben’s narratives show how completely obsessed he is with modeling himself after Mikkel.  Cecilie’s sections portray her emotional reconnection with Jonas. Their individual sections become more self-reflective, showing a maturity in both that they lacked at the novel’s beginning. For Reuben, it is as though he has, for the first time since his dismissal from NPR, regained a consciousness about his purpose and his professional potential—one not provided by being a stay-at-home father.

Of course, Mikkel’s direct involvement with and responsibility for Reuben’s renewed sense of self and purpose is undeniable. More than any of the other male characters in Cecilie’s friend group, Mikkel warms to Reuben—an act that, by the end of the novel, makes one wonder about Mikkel’s true intentions as well as his potential of suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. With Mikkel, Reuben engages in unhinged drinking; late-night antics reminiscent of adolescents’ bad choices; a questionable tattoo that reads “NOGET ROTTER” rather than the phrase “SOMETHING ROTTEN” (which is what Mikkel tells Reuben the tattoo says); and the mutual decision to shave their heads. Mikkel is the character who adds the most Shakespearean flair and spice to Something Rotten, and Reuben is not the only one Mikkel adeptly manipulates throughout the novel. Mikkel is such a master manipulator and malevolent deception artist that, by the novel’s end, he has not only duped Reuben and the friend group in a despicable sadistic way. He also manipulates readers who may have—by the final chapter—perceived Mikkel as a philosopher, a virtuous journalist, and a strange bearer of the truths no else dares to expose. He is the physical embodiment of blurred morality lines—one that in a film version of the novel would have to be portrayed by none other than Danish actor and villain-extraordinaire Mads Mikkelsen.

Underpinning Something Rotten is its subtle critique of American culture—or lack of—in comparison to Danish culture. Specifically, as Reuben begins convincing himself that he should pose to Cecilie the idea of permanently relocating to Denmark, the issue of childcare and daycare—and Denmark’s supportive welfare system as a whole—are Reuben’s most prominent discussion points. The novel portrays Copenhagen as a friendly, inclusive space, where friends and families spend more time focusing on what they love to do and being with each other rather than losing themselves and their identities to a capitalist system designed to undermine an individual’s basic needs. Danes are portrayed as a people who healthily maintain a sense of national pride: descriptions of Danish flags in yards —and even a swath of Danish flags on Reuben and Cecile’s son’s cake from his grandmother—sharply contrast the American alt-right, MAGA appropriation of the American flag. More so, the Danish sense of communal responsibility—which also markedly differs from Reuben and Cecilie’s interpretations of fake American altruism—permeates the story via the responsibility each of Jonas’s friends feels as he faces decisions about his AVM diagnosis.

The communal sense of responsibility develops into a national one when a man named Pederson, one of Denmark’s far-right candidates —who in rhetoric, political ideology, and sexual assault allegations is eerily like American President Donald Trump— is outed for sexual assault in the paper for which Mikkel is managing editor. The political outing and impending ousting are all any Dane Reuben encounters can speak of. Lipstein powerfully portrays friends with opposing viewpoints angrily arguing, yet remaining friends—a scene in which Reuben wonders when, in America, he last saw two people with opposing political viewpoints maintaining a friendship. Thus, Lipstein manages to quietly reproach America’s polarizing political banter that has, in the last decade, left the nation extremely divided. For Reuben, these societal attributes are both mesmerizing and bewildering, while for Cecilie, they are inherent elements of her personal and socio-cultural identities.

Cecilie encounters her own various existential crises. As she accepts more and more responsibility for helping Jonas through his diagnosis, and as she works tirelessly to persuade him to undergo the procedure that might save him, she deals with the what-if and what-was of their past relationship. Her attraction to Jonas grows, and, in comparison to her relationship with Reuben, her relationship with Jonas bears the embers of what could flare into a fiery affair—though she denies this to her friend, Louisa. Simultaneously, she must also navigate how American she has truly become since living in the United States. Her friends lower their eyes when Cecilie mentions how little maternity leave she has from her job (Danish parents have six months for each parent). Cecilie’s Danish friends prefer the frank, direct communication means and speak openly and plainly with one another—another distinction Cecilie notices as she contemplates how American she has become. She remembers how, after moving to the US, she noticed “certain Danish male archetypes—the elegant capitalist, the transgressive punk, the fitness freak—as counterfeits of American originals, their emulations naked yet never quite right.” She observes that in Denmark “there was a pervasive instinct for the greater good, a sense that it was up to the people—not the courts—to maintain the well-being of society.” Thus,  Cecilie herself is a Danish archetype, embodying key Danish values such as punctuality, planning, and most of all, responsibility.

Life’s permanence is, perhaps, the novel’s philosophical core. It blends with a unique discussion about death:

                         If death gives shape to life, life doesn’t return the favor; to be alive is to believe, 
 		         against all sense, that we will never die. We accept death, we say its name, but
 		         we know it won’t come for us, not today or tomorrow or years from now, there’s
 		         always been time and there always will be.

Fused with this discussion of time and mortality is a raw realization about truth’s role in life and death’s endless tug-of-war: “Still the truth would be there somewhere, raw, needing nothing from anyone. As always, it would be just out of reach, everywhere and nowhere, a promise that can’t be kept.” Thus, Something Rotten harbors a number of philosophical stones on which readers can perch themselves and reevaluate the meaning of life, death, and truth in their own lives.

Something Rotten is perhaps one of the best novels 2025 has to so far offer readers. However, it is not an easy read. It asks American readers to enter into another culture and to live life for a while with a group of friends whose existences are at times detestable, at times enviable. Most of all, it implores anyone who enters its pages to think beyond themselves and look toward the greater good—a message today’s readers probably need during these dark times.

Andrew Lipstein  is an American novelist. He wrote Last Resort (2022), The Vegan (2023), and Something Rotten (2025). Andrew lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three sons.

Nicole Yurcaba (Нікола Юрцаба) is a Ukrainian American of Hutsul/Lemko origin. Her poems and reviews have appeared in Appalachian Heritage, Atlanta Review, Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, Southern Review of Books, Seneca Review, New Eastern Europe, and Ukraine’s Euromaidan Press, Lit Gazeta, Chytomo, Bukvoid, and The New Voice of Ukraine. Her poetry collection, The Pale Goth, is available from Alien Buddha Press. 

14 August 2025