The Breakup (2026) by Kurt Andersen

Book Review

The Breakup (2026)

by Kurt Andersen

  I've been a fan of Kurt Andersen since his Spy magazine days.  For those of you who don't know, Spy Magazine was a hugely influential title that lasted from the mid 1980's to the late 1990's.  It was known for its tone, generally called "snarky," which proved hugely influential in the early days of the internet, specifically when it came to Gossip-Culture websites like Gawker (RIP). I also enjoyed Turn of the Century, his last attempt at a zeitgeist-y style of literary fiction.  The fact that Turn of the Century was published in 1999 should tell you that he hasn't exactly been working to perfect his approach, with his recent works including a co-write with murderer Alec Baldwin about our unhinged Commander-in-Chief. 

  The Breakup, on the other hand, got me excited based on the review in the New York Times book section.  Truth be told I'm a sucker for anything that combines post-apocalypitc/dystopian themes with any other literary fiction adjacent drama.  Here, the dystopia is a very well imagined Civil War 2 which has resulted in a bifurcation as imagined for the micro-targeting era, with cities functioning as "blue" enclaves in post-split "red" states and red portions of blue states splitting to start new states, etc.   The story is about as minimal as it gets: Jewish tech-bro executive and his red-state, Cuban immigrant, poetess wife breaking up and making up as they tour their non-gender conforming daughter across the post-split landscape.

 I fully agree with the New Times write-up: that the pleasure here is in the richly imagined details rather than any satisfaction with the loosely woven plot.   I devoured The Breakup over a vacation weekend on my Kindle and barely wanted to stop reading for any reason other than meals.

  To me, the most trenchant theme was one that was largely (though not wholly) unexplored: That the blue parts of the map would be more than happy to be shed of the red parts, or at least those red parts that feel so strongly about the issue.  In The Breakup, the capital of the post-split red state is Abilene Texas, the largest metro area remaining in red America.  The last current event type thing that happens in the book is a "recission" where the state of Montana realizes that they are going to be on the hook for paying a bunch of literal poor, white, trash and vote to go back to the United States (after voting to leave.)  In that way, The Breakup ultimately imagines Civil War 2 as a kind of post break-up revenge fantasy.