' The Topeka School deftly explores how language not only reflects but is at the very center of our country's most insidious crises. 'Autofiction master Lerner returns with his most expansive novel to date.Narration from the present-day and interludes hinting at a terrible tragedy add intrigue to this study of polarization and toxic masculinity.' - Entertainment Weekly 'Loosely plotted but riveting, this novel expertly locates the thread of the anxious present in the memory-stippled past.' - Publishers Weekly Autofiction at its smartest and most effective: self-interested, self-interrogating, but never self-involved.' - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) 'Engrossing.Few writers are so deeply engaged as Lerner in how our interior selves are shaped by memory and consequence.Increasingly powerful and heartbreaking as the story moves on. 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. 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.ĭeftly 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. 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 a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world.

His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting 'lost boys' to open up. 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.Īdam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of '97.

Ben lerner 10 04 summary