Getting Even/Letting Go - Paperback

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by Julian Tepper (Author)

Getting Even/Letting Go is a taut, darkly comic novel about money, memory, and the psychic wreckage of a marriage long after love has ended.

On a single spring afternoon in New York City, Gene Mills--a once-successful writer now living on fumes--hosts friends in his apartment while waiting for an art auction that could change everything. The paintings on the block were made by his ex-wife, now a global art star. They depict her affair, her ambition, and the life she detonated when she left him. Gene believes selling them is justice. Or survival. Or both.

As the clock ticks toward the auction lots, Gene spirals through old resentments, legal threats, parental guilt, financial desperation, and the corrosive pleasure of retaliation. What unfolds is an intimate portrait of a man trying to convert emotional injury into cash, to reclaim dignity through ownership, and to convince himself that getting even might finally allow him to let go.

With biting wit and relentless psychological precision, Julian Tepper explores the moral gray zones of divorce, custody, authorship, and art-world power--where love becomes leverage, memory becomes inventory, and victory may cost more than defeat. Getting Even/Letting Go is a novel about what remains when intimacy turns transactional, and whether freedom can ever be purchased without exacting a final, private price.

Author Biography

Julian Tepper is the author of five novels. His writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Playboy, Brooklyn Rail, Zyzzyva, Daily Beast, Bomb, Tablet Magazine, The New York Review of Architecture, and elsewhere. His essay, "Locking Down with the Family You've Just Eviscerated in a Novel" was a "Notable Essay of 2022" in Best American Essays 2022. He was born and raised in New York City.

Number of Pages: 256

Dimensions: 0.6 x 8.5 x 5.5 IN

Publication Date: October 20, 2026