
The Breakup
A Novel
Kurt Andersen(Author)
Random House USA Inc (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 18. August 2026
Book
Hardback
576 pages
978-1-9848-0137-1 (ISBN)
Description
A marriage cracks apart as a near-future United States redraws its borders in this penetrating and moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Fantasyland.
“This remarkable book contains multitudes. With wide-ranging intelligence and his trademark wit, Kurt Andersen has written an epic elegy for a country strained past its breaking point.”—Tom Perrotta, author of Ghost Town
Natalie and Asher’s marriage has long been marked by fault lines, quiet rifts in how they view their fellow Americans and navigate AI-suffused life in 2045. After twenty-three years together, and after surviving the two years of civil war in the 2030s, Natalie in rural Tennessee (part of the new Free American Republic) and Asher in San Francisco (in the now smaller United States).Natalie and Asher’s relationship mirrors America’s own unraveling—confused, messy, painful, ambivalent, and impossibly intimate.
When Natalie and Asher are brought back into proximity while touring far-flung colleges with their seventeen-year-old, they find themselves on a road trip through a strange, uncertain new American landscape, transformed by both the terrorist uprising and technology, all while dealing with the flux—and resilience—within their own family. They face the questions the nation has reckoned with for a generation: what differences are irreconcilable, and when is something broken worth saving?
Razor-sharp, ambitious, ranging from tragic to comic and brimming with imagination, The Breakup is a sweeping story where the personal and sociopolitical intersect in ways bracingly plausible, keenly insightful, and surprisingly hopeful.
“This remarkable book contains multitudes. With wide-ranging intelligence and his trademark wit, Kurt Andersen has written an epic elegy for a country strained past its breaking point.”—Tom Perrotta, author of Ghost Town
Natalie and Asher’s marriage has long been marked by fault lines, quiet rifts in how they view their fellow Americans and navigate AI-suffused life in 2045. After twenty-three years together, and after surviving the two years of civil war in the 2030s, Natalie in rural Tennessee (part of the new Free American Republic) and Asher in San Francisco (in the now smaller United States).Natalie and Asher’s relationship mirrors America’s own unraveling—confused, messy, painful, ambivalent, and impossibly intimate.
When Natalie and Asher are brought back into proximity while touring far-flung colleges with their seventeen-year-old, they find themselves on a road trip through a strange, uncertain new American landscape, transformed by both the terrorist uprising and technology, all while dealing with the flux—and resilience—within their own family. They face the questions the nation has reckoned with for a generation: what differences are irreconcilable, and when is something broken worth saving?
Razor-sharp, ambitious, ranging from tragic to comic and brimming with imagination, The Breakup is a sweeping story where the personal and sociopolitical intersect in ways bracingly plausible, keenly insightful, and surprisingly hopeful.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 37 mm
Weight
567 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-9848-0137-1 (9781984801371)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Kurt Andersen