“Great book! Pairing two divorces—one personal, one national—within a novel that’s funny and beautiful is something few writers could do. Thank you, universe, for Kurt Andersen and this page-turner.”—Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Vera, or Faith
“Kurt Andersen is the most brilliant social novelist of our time, in the tradition of Tom Wolfe and Don DeLillo, but even funnier and deeper. With a light touch and instinct for telling details, he mixes pitch-perfect satire with profound insights. Each sentence in The Breakup packs a wallop and provokes a smile. In this supercharged book, Andersen gives us a glimpse of an AI-drenched America coping with the aftermath of a civil war. Through the journey of two people whose relationship has fractured, he provides a needed lesson for our nation about how to deal with deep differences and save what is valuable.”—Walter Isaacson, New York Times bestselling author of The Greatest Sentence Ever Written
“Well, it’s come to this: One of our most brilliantly observant and thoughtful writers is compelling us to contemplate an American future of disunion and AI-domination in a novel that is all the more powerful for its sobriety, its realism, and, yes, its humanity. With a grasp of history and of manners, of political forces and of emotional truths, Kurt Andersen has written an engaging, important, and illuminating book. In the 19th century, Anthony Trollope wrote of ‘The Way We Live Now’; in the 21st, Andersen invites us to think about the way we may have to.”—Jon Meacham, #1 New York Times bestselling author of American Struggle
“With wit, fizz, and that rare ability to articulate big ideas that haven’t yet been articulated, Andersen perceives the world on a different frequency from the rest of us.”—Jennifer Senior, Pulitzer Prize–winning Atlantic writer and New York Times bestselling author
“The Breakup is an amazing achievement, a harrowing and profound social satire set in the near future, capturing the breakup of a marriage and our poor country. . . . Rich in characters and insight, sometimes painful, often funny, beautifully written.”—Anne Lamott, New York Times bestselling author
“A rich, incisive study of manners and morals in the American 21st century. And how the strain of constant adaptation to fearful events and discoveries is almost too much to bear, even for people of understanding and sympathy. Pointed, funny and unnerving, The Breakup conveys a sense of inevitability.”—Susanna Moore, bestselling author of In the Cut and The Lost Wife
“This remarkable book contains multitudes—it’s a provocative political thought experiment, a sneakily profound meditation on AI and marriage, and a charming family road trip novel all rolled into one. With wide-ranging intelligence and his trademark wit, Kurt Andersen has written an epic elegy for a country strained past its breaking point, and imagined an eerily plausible version of our dark national future.”—Tom Perrotta, author of Ghost Town
