Adam Gordon, a poet who first appeared in Ben Lerner's Leaving the Atocha Station, is now married to a psychologist, Jane, and the father of two daughters. The novel moves between the present and Adam's high-school years in Topeka, Kansas in the late 1990s, when he competed in extemporaneous debate and when his parents, both therapists at the Foundation clinic, were at work. Lerner looks at masculinity, rhetoric, the way men talk over others, and a classmate named Darren whose troubles Adam did not understand, and he ties this to political language today.
It's a good choice for readers of experimental, intelligent autofiction. If you like novels that mix family life with ideas about speech and violence, this one rewards patient attention.
Deep, inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Wisdom Collector. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 2019
- Language
- EN
