The Smash-Up

Ali Benjamin’s debut novel, The Smash-up, is a very confident first fiction in which she explores a divide in American life marked by the election of Trump—not of left and right, but between men and women. Ethan and Zo’s comfortable marriage develops a deep schism after Clinton’s defeat—three years into the Trump ‘presidency’ Zo spends all her time working with an outraged women’s activist collective while a disaffected Ethan, once unthinkingly monogamous, has developed an obsession for the nanny—and his one-time partner is facing #metoo ruin. It’s a good read.