Something Is Rotten in Fettig

Told in a wry, understated voice, the novel satirizes the travails of Leopold Plotkin, a failing kosher butcher with a pathological aversion to conflict. After Plotkin commits an act that ignites a crisis in his Republic, he is propelled into conflicts with every branch of government. When he refuses the government’s demands to undo what he did, he is indicted by a Secret Blind Jury, arrested by the National Constabulary, and consigned to the notorious Purgatory House of Detention, where he languishes next to a defrocked insane lawyer whose nocturnal machinations threaten to drive him crazy. After months of languishing in prison, Plotkin is prosecuted by the Republic’s ethically-challenged Prosecutor General, tried before a congenitally pro-prosecution judge, and defended by a reclusive lawyer who has never been in a courtroom. The butcher’s only witness in the highly anticipated trial is an unhinged resident of the Warehouse for the Purportedly Insane. Everybody, including Plotkin and his small circle of supporters, expects a conviction and imposition of the longest sentence allowed by law, if not longer.

Among other things, the novel lampoons prosecutors, public defenders, judges, juries, expert witnesses, high courts, low courts, trials, and potential perjurers.

“…The uproarious novel is first and foremost a comedy, rife with absurdist humor…[e]nough jabs at law and criminal justice to make a point, all packaged in a courtroom drama that’s pure entertainment.” —Kirkus Reviews

“4/5*: You’re moving along at steady clip, completely immersed in Plotkin’s unwitting journey towards public damnation, and properly outraged by the irrational and illogical flavor of the evidence that’s stacked against him. Delightfully satirical, the author takes a jab at everything from judges, to juries, to lawyers, to public manipulation and ignorance, oftentimes with hilarious results.” —Manhattan Book Review, “Humor,” Heather Clawson

“It’s easy to imagine a former civil-rights attorney who’s worked extensively in the criminal-justice system writing a book inspired by the experience. But you might not foresee the result as this comic burlesque of a novel. It takes place in the fictional republic of Fettig, a setting that could pass for a circa-1900 Lower East Side. It’s populated by European ethnic types including protagonist Leonard Plotkin, a Jewish butcher who despite his ‘pathological aversion to conflict’ ends up facing trial on absurd criminal charges./ With its wide-angle aim at a deranged republic’s corrupt institutions, and its feel for a punchline, Something Is Rotten is hardly the earnest treatise you might expect from a lawyer whose résumé includes (as Pittsburgh resident Krakoff’s does) the ACLU National Prison Project and a local legal-aid program. Instead, the novel is sort of Dickens by way of Woody Allen, featuring characters with names like Emile Threadbare and Primo Astigmatopolous, and a writing style and approach to jokes that suggests Allen’s satirical short stories. (One artist character, for instance, is described as ‘an untalented abstractionist who occasionally sold her impenetrable works to customers who appreciated confusion.’) Each chapter begins with one of Krakoff’s own caricatures of this highly populous novel’s main character, all adding to the impression of a society where palms are greased and egos readily flattered, but justice is seldom served.” —Pittsburgh City Paper, “Reviews of the first 50 pages of recent works by local authors,” Bill O’Driscoll

“5/5*: Something Is Rotten in Fettig wittily satirizes a legal system that is very similar to our own…this fast-paced work is filled with good writing, presented in highly readable prose…characters are well developed…very enjoyable.” —Midwest Book Review: Molly’s Bookshelf; AuthorsDen

Prior to writing Something Is Rotten in Fettig, Jere Krakoff was a civil rights attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project in Washington, D.C. & Committee for C