book review: 10:04 by Ben Lerner
The backstory: 10:04, the second novel by poet Ben Lerner, is a 2014 New York Times Notable Book . The basics: Told in five sections, 10:04 is an exploration of time and life through the eyes of our unnamed narrator, a poet and novelist living in Brooklyn. My thoughts: Ben Lerner grew up in Topeka, Kansas. He's one year older than I am, and we have a lot of mutual real-life Topeka friends. He then went on to Brown University, where a lot of my high school went to college. He now lives in Brooklyn, where a lot of my high school friends live. All of this is to say, this novel is somewhat autobiographical and straddles the lines between fiction and memoir. Some of my enjoyment of it can likely be traced to the descriptions of life in Topeka in the mid-1980's, when I too lived there. Even if I didn't share such experiences, however, I would love this novel. I adore the way Lerner writes. He has a poet's precision of language that is breathtaking. He writes with in...