The Topeka School (2019)

By Ben Lerner

304pp, Fiction

Notes

2019-12-31

Anyway, the Topeka School. About author stand in Adam Gordon negotiating adolescence and toxic masculinity in the mid-west durting the 1990s. I liked it, and there were a couple of passages I really liked. There’s one bit where Jane, the main characters mother, describes the feeling of not having booked a flight she was supposed to have booked but having fooled herself into believing she had until the last minute when her brain is forced to confront it’s own deception. As a chronic procrastinator prone to anxiety I felt that was very well observed.

The book is clearly in dialogue with Infinite Jest which was published around the time the book is set and shares its concerns with masculinity, language, communication etc. There’s also something about how both books deal with religion and/or religion stand-ins but I haven’t had the capacity to unpack all that.

My dissapointment is that the book wasn’t very funny, or i didn’t find it to be anyway. I think it wanted to be and there are gestures in the direction of jokes but nothing really payed off for me.