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Fiction. Literature. HTML: Named one of the most anticipated fall books by: Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, Vogue, Vulture, The Observer, Kirkus, Lit Hub, The Millions, The Week, Oprah Magazine, The Paris Review Daily, Nylon, Pacific Standard, Publishers Weekly, Slate, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Guardian From the award-winning author of 10:04 and Leaving the Atocha Station, a tender and expansive family drama set in the American Midwest at the turn of the century: a tale of adolescence, transgression, and the conditions that have given rise to the trolls and tyrants of the New Right. Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of '97. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting "lost boys" to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak. Adam is also one of the seniors who bring the loner Darren Eberheart�??who is, unbeknownst to Adam, his father's patient�??into the social scene, to disastrous effect. Deftly shifting perspectives and time periods, The Topeka School is the story of a family, its struggles and its strengths: Jane's reckoning with the legacy of an abusive father, Jonathan's marital transgressions, the challenge of raising a good son in a culture of toxic masculinity. It is also a riveting prehistory of the present: the collapse of public speech, the trolls and tyrants of the New Right, and the ongoing crisis of identity among white men. Cover photograph from The Wichita Eagle. © 1990 McClatchy. All rights reserved. Used under license. Kansas.… (more)
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The story is told in multiple voices with Adam's being dominant. There are chapters in the voices of each of his parents, Jane and Jonathon, and Darren. Much of Adam's narrative centers around his skill and understanding of debate and forensics. He describes a technique known as "the spread" where extremely rapid speech is used to cover as many arguments possible with the intent that one's opponent will be penalized for failing to respond to all arguments raised. Adam associates the rise in this form of debate with a similar rise in rhetoric over logical reasoning in media broadcasting. Adam excels in this technique, but it is not his preferred event and it nags at his conscience as an underhanded means of competitive speaking.
There are a lot of threads to the novel. The toxic environment for boys in developing a masculine image in adolescence is one. The backlash from that Jane has to deal with once she becomes a successful author on womens' mental health issues, both from within her close circle and the public. There is foreshadowing of the rise of ultra-conservatism in Kansas that we see today. The title "The Topeka School" could be several things: it could be the social schooling of the seniors (especially the boys) in what it means to be a man as they are about to enter the outside world. It could also be referring to the sometimes unorthodox practices of the mental health facility where Adam's parents are employed. And it could be that foreshadowing referred to earlier, spurred by the corrosion of high school debate judged by senators and other politicians that bleeds into public policy forums.
I finished this book more than a week ago and continue to ruminate on the various threads presented by the author. His writing is prosaic and in some ways reminds me of Julian Barnes' writing.
There is something intensifying in a Ben Lerner novel. Images, motifs, phrases, sentences come round again, and again. Each time they take on a different aspect, they complicate themselves and those images or phrases around them. Soon the effect begins to intensify. Everything becomes both more meaningful and less certain. You begin to feel like a space within a highly orchestrated symphony. So much going on around you and you feel like if you could be completely still you might just hear it all at once. It’s a futile hope but inevitable. The effect is sublime. Or maybe you’re just suffering from the spread.
This is a stunning novel of art, politics, the poetry of language, and the increasingly unlikely prospect for actual communication. Each chapter, presented from one of the three main characters’ perspectives, becomes a kind of set piece as motifs and themes re-emerge and complicate. Past and present and future (from some points of view) are always already in play. It could be intimidating but Lerner makes it easeful. This is a novel you will read quickly but be exhausted by, your breath quite literally taken away.
Astonishingly good and thus highly recommended.
I can't do this novel justice. There were moments of irritation with the author's overkill of a thematic element but many more moments of appreciation for his subtlety, for his creative drawing of connections between cultural elements. His grasp of psychological theory is evident but not overwrought (close, that one). And his timing is exquisite. A very satisfying read.
I had to read it, based upon the title, but didn't get much from the effort.
Although the writing in this novel was compelling, I found it easy to lose focus and just skip
Lerner does move his characters through themes of masculinity and psychology while telling the tale through multiple points of view. He is clearly a talented author, but I would have enjoyed more attention to plot.
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC through NetGalley.
I found this to be an unexciting narrative about Adam, a very talented member of his high school debate team; his father, a psychologist; and his mother, a famous feminist author. Also woven in and around these main characters is insight into a young man named Darren, a loner who committed an act of violence. The story is told from the main characters’ alternating points of view and from different time periods, thus making the plot (what there is of it) quite confusing and disjointed. This was rather a laborious read for me, and I found it very hard to get through some pretty dense writing. I also could not really connect with any of the characters, although recognizing various geographic references sprinkled throughout the story brought back many pleasant memories for me.
While I found this a difficult read and the writing generally heavy and opaque, I nonetheless admired many of the passages and descriptions this novel contains. Lerner’s being a poet often shines though into his writing style, and some of his sentences I read and re-read because they were so beautifully constructed. All in all, though, this book just did not work for me.
Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.
The novel is also about language. Adam has it and can use it in competition and also at keg parties where vocal insults are used like weapons. His metaphor of " the spread " - "the act of making arguments and jamming in facts at such an unintelligibly fast pace that an opponent can’t possibly respond to them all effectively" (The Atlantic) brings the reader to a sense of what is controlling the national dialogue.
Lerner writes well about the late 1990's, and describes life in the Midwest with knowing insights and clever observations. He peppers the story line with essays about art, relationships, masculinity and psychology. At times for me the story itself, a bildungsroman for the most part, gets too sidetracked by the reflections, but I definitely found the novel to be engrossing and worthwhile. Lerner manages to provide insights into our current state of affairs by exploring his own upbringing. Another example of auto fiction that works well, relying on the author to blend his recollections with intellectual reflection.
Lines:
what could be more obvious than the fact that they did not know what suffering was, that if they suffered from anything it was precisely this lack of suffering, a kind of neuropathy that came from too much ease, too much sugar, a kind of existential gout?
The intimacy between us was quick and intense; there was something giddy about it; we were like kids at summer camp or freshmen at college who glom on to a new friend with an excitement tinged with desperation.
Reynolds peeling off his sweatshirt in the cold to reveal a six-pack, lats that made his torso appear hooded like a cobra.
I accepted the gum like a Communion wafer, some sign of absolution, new resolve.
A nerdy, yet hip enough, high school student spends his last years at home succeeding in competitive debates, desiring the captain of his team a girl, has a love for poetry which he transforms into half assed rap songs and is the son of two boomer generation
We follow Adam and his parents as they deal with his anxiety attacks triggered by both a head injury and migraines. Adam competes at a high level and is on a fast track to Brown University. He struggles with breaking free from the safe cocoon his parents and small community have provided.
At the end of each chapter lives Darren a boy who is treated poorly by his peers and who ends up a patient at the Foundation His story serves as a counterpoint and cautionary tale, representing the underside of high achieving middle class academia and strivers. Additionally, Trump’s presidency and the madness it confronts citizens with, is another background story which results in commentary on the current sociopolitical context of the United States. Dr. Klaus, an older Foundation staff member, a mentor to Adam’s father describes the insular world of the families who work there: “the sign of imperial decline, this vacuum at the heart of privilege…a kind of neuropathy that came from too much ease, too much sugar, a kind of existential gout.”
In one longer passage Adam, commenting on his debating coach, a conservative striver with a trace of anti-Semitism:
“Evanson, even if he had the right words, was on the wrong side of history that ended with Dole…the baby boomers were more liberal than their parents, and Adam’s generation, however schizophrenic, was said to be more liberal still. He’d heard more than one person claim that all those ‘white kids wanting to be black’ was evidence that the old racial fault lines were passing away. Eminem would soon be the bestselling rapper of all time. The electorate, Adam had read in the Economist, would grow increasingly diverse and the Republicans would die off as a national party even if something remained the matter with Kansas, Evanson might have a career writing reactionary speeches, or become another Rush Limbaugh talking into the air, addressing truckers on No Doz, but meanwhile there would be a black/female president; Adam wanted to believe it was the end of the age of angry white men proclaiming the end of civilization.”
In the concluding chapter, Adam, now living in NYC, married with two children, attends an anti-ICE demonstration with his wife and daughter, becomes aware that the police were getting more agitated and aggressive with the protestors: “there was little chance of arrest, we’d assumed, given the babies and young children, given that nobody was trying to further penetrate the offices, but I sensed that even as seasoned protestor as [my wife] Natalia wasn’t sure what the rules were, what the agents of the state were capable of, now that America was great again.”
In the end, this is an American novel documenting the family dynamics, ambitions, jealousies, missteps and political backdrops of present-day America. Reminiscent of Franzen’s Corrections and Freedom, Ben Lerner has created a milieu in which these issues are explored with intelligence, insight, humor and despair.
The reviews promise a
I was also disappointed with the character development of Darren. A troubling incident is reflected on throughout the novel, and when it arrived I felt the delivery and the ensuing impact fall well below promised expectation. I wanted to know more about this character and the aftermath, and they were only reduced to a passing reference in another character’s flash forward.
I read many interesting things about techniques and the rules of debate, but they all quickly faded in my mind, as I couldn’t maintain much interest. I did learn of the concept of attempting to “spread” an opponent, by speaking so insanely quick and mentioning so many points, that one’s opponent would be penalized by the debate judges for not having enough time to counter all of them.
There are other characters and happenings, but not that stayed long in my sphere of interest. There are mentions of the Topeka’s Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Church and their disgusting and despicable protests with their GOD HATES FAGS sign at military funerals. After looking him up online, it felt good that he left this planet in 2014, and his influence has faded.
There were parts that took the reader back to a past where toxic masculinity held an even stronger grip on our society than it does now. Adam’s mother, Dr. Jane Gordon, had written a socially progressive book (for that time) about how men and women related to each other, and that drew all kinds of abuse, especially after her appearance on Oprah. This was long before caller ID, and abusive and anonymous callers felt “braver.”
“Hello,” the voice would typically drop into a whisper or hiss; then—almost without fail—I’d hear the word ‘cunt.’ Sometimes they just wanted to let me know that I was a cunt who ruined their marriage, or that cunts like me were the problem with women today, a bunch of feminazi cunts, or that I should shut my cunt mouth (stop writing); they’d deliver their message and hang up.”
Dr. Jane would respond by simply continuing to say, “I’m sorry, can you speak up?” until they got embarrassed and seemed to fear that someone in their own household would hear them continuing their cunt diatribe, and they would just hang up.
At one point Adam summed things up, “The problem for him in high school was that debate made you a nerd and poetry made you a pussy.” One time while taking a long walk, Adam notices that in certain sections all he sees is Burger King, Sonic, Wendy’s and later after the fast-food joints, he comes to where there’s a grouping of interconnected masonry buildings on a main street, where every business had only one location, they were chainless. This may not have registered with the average reader, but when you’ve run a fearlessly independent business for a few decades like I have, that sort of observation strikes you and is appreciated.
There were many reflections of earlier times, like when people dressed up when flying, funny tales of dad taking acid and tripping on a museum visit, and when several people could answer the home phone at a time … and even continue to listen in. There was also Adam’s many thoughts about an attractive classmate named Sima. He thinks of the “fall of her hair across her pillow, slight part of her lips, the curve where her shoulder met her breast.” Another time, as a teenager, he doesn’t quite know how to think about having seen some of his mother’s pubic hair peeking out of her swimsuit. Growing up is never easy.
Just to provoke more thoughts about the book’s happenings, the book is often pointed to as another example of autofiction, since it mirrors Lerner’s life at times. I most liked the observations from other times and reminded me again of the horrible effects of winner-take-all capitalism and all that toxic masculinity. Overall, I’d still have been better off to have looked at the treats in another storefront.
I understand that this book is not for everyone. It's not a linear story - it's not much a traditional story at all. It's more of an exploration, and as long as you're comfortable with that you will enjoy this book very much.
A lot of this feels like the reflections of a relatively privileged person, who focuses on the relatively insignificant moments of drama to carry the story forward. The Topeka School would feel trite if Lerner didn't have a larger point to make about how language and access to information interferes with meaning. The central metaphor is through the spread, the debating technique that involves talking so quickly and stating so many arguments in such a short period of time that it is impossible to respond to all of them. Lerner's characters are smart, successful white people with an illusory feeling of comprehension, as exemplified through Jane, Adam's successful therapist / author mother who can't come to grips with her own trauma.