The writer Ben Lerner discusses his new novel The Topeka School (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), with Joseph Planta.

The Topeka School by Ben Lerner (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The Topeka School

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

Ben Lerner joins me again. The distinguished author has just published a new novel The Topeka School. The reviews for the book have been good. The New York Times Book Review hailed the book as “a high-water mark in recent American fiction,” while the Washington Post’s Ron Charles called it an “extraordinarily brilliant novel.” The book is set in Topeka, Kansas in the 1990s. Adam Gordon is a senior in high school, who we also meet as an older person, as the book shifts time periods. We meet his mother, Jane, his father Jonathan, as well as another character named Darren. Through these four characters we see America as it was in the 1990s, the embodiment of Middle America, and how we’ve ended up with the contemporary America we’re contending with, politically and otherwise. Through various themes like abuse, toxic masculinity, as well as class, we see how got to where we are today. That’s something me and Ben Lerner talk about in this conversation we taped just over a week ago, while he was in Toronto for an appearance. He was first on the program when his last novel 10:04 was published. It was an internationally acclaimed book, as was his first Leaving the Atocha Station. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry. He has received fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Foundations. This new book is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, Ben Lerner; Professor Lerner, good morning.

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