Last spring, Ben Lerner attended Seton Hall University's Poetry-in-the-Round where he read from his premiere novel, "Leaving the Atocha Station."
The book details the intellectual protagonist, poet Adam Gordon, in Madrid, Spain on a Fulbright fellowship. His intended project is to compose a long narrative poem about literature's impact on the Spanish Civil War. The tools he carries for this endeavor include "a bilingual edition of Lorca's 'Collected Poems,' two notebooks, a pocket dictionary, John Ashbery's 'Selected Poems,' [and] drugs."
While half-heartedly working on his project, Gordon questions his relationship with art. He examines the possibility of his own fraudulence as a poet as he finds himself unable to experience profundity in art. While caught up in his own psychological struggles, the 2004 Madrid train bombings occur, further complicating Gordon's life.
Readers will enjoy Ben Lerner's singular style; his use of long, lyrical sentences examining the hilarity as well as tragedy of human experience. The novel poses many questions about art and the place of poetry in the 21st century, providing no definitive answers, but rather proposing the possibility of different conclusions.
This novel was named one of the best books of 2011 by "The Wall Street Journal," "The New Yorker," "The Guardian," "The Boston Globe" and "New York Magazine." It won the Believer Book Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and The New York Public Library's 2012 Young Lions Fiction Award.
At only 34-years-old, Ben Lerner has also published three books of poetry, which also won numerous awards. His talent is blatant and "Leaving the Atocha Station" proves it.
Edward Hopkins can be reached at edward.hopkins@student.shu. edu.
