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Getting Even/Letting Go
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.
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.
256 pages, Paperback
Published October 20, 2026
About the author
Julian Tepper
11 books31 followersJulian Tepper is the author of four novels, Cooler Heads, Between the Records, Balls, and Ark. His writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Playboy, The Brooklyn Rail, Zyzzyva, The Daily Beast, The Brooklyn Rail, Tablet Magazine, 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 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 11, 2026
Julian’s latest novel, Getting Even/Letting Go tells the story of Gene Mills, a down-on-his-luck writer whose finances are in dire straits. As a last resort to replenish his bank account, he decides to sell at auction paintings his ex-wife—a wildly successful painter—left at their apartment when she moved out years earlier.
This book is a remarkably rich, nuanced, and ethically ambiguous tale about our responsibilities toward one another. None of the characters in this novel—especially Gene—emerge morally uncompromised.
For some idea of what this work is, try to imagine Woody Allen rewriting a Phillip Roth novel.
This book is a remarkably rich, nuanced, and ethically ambiguous tale about our responsibilities toward one another. None of the characters in this novel—especially Gene—emerge morally uncompromised.
For some idea of what this work is, try to imagine Woody Allen rewriting a Phillip Roth novel.
October 26, 2026
I love the way Julian paints his characters with so much complexity, yet in the simplest of words and phrasing. A master storyteller through and through.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews