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Transcription
Not yet published
Expected 7 Apr 26From the “most talented writer of his generation” (The New York Times), a lightning flash of a novel that is at once a gripping emotional drama and a brilliant examination of the devices, digital and literary, we use to store―or to erase―our memories.
The narrator of Ben Lerner’s new novel has traveled to Providence, Rhode Island, where he is to conduct what will be the final published interview with Thomas, his ninety-year-old mentor and the father of his college friend, Max. Thomas is a giant in the arts who seems to hail “from the future and the past simultaneously” and who “reenchants the air” when he speaks. But the narrator drops his smartphone in the hotel sink. He arrives at Thomas’s house with no recording device, a fact he is mysteriously unable to confess.
What unfolds from this dreamlike circumstance is both the unforgettable story of the triangle formed by Thomas, Max, and the narrator, and a brilliant meditation on those technologies that enrich or impoverish our connection to one another, that store or obliterate memory. Haunted by Kafka (there are echoes of “The Judgement” and “A Hunger Artist”), but utterly contemporary, Lerner combines trenchant insight with lyric mystery. Ultimately, Transcription demonstrates what only a work of fiction can record.
The narrator of Ben Lerner’s new novel has traveled to Providence, Rhode Island, where he is to conduct what will be the final published interview with Thomas, his ninety-year-old mentor and the father of his college friend, Max. Thomas is a giant in the arts who seems to hail “from the future and the past simultaneously” and who “reenchants the air” when he speaks. But the narrator drops his smartphone in the hotel sink. He arrives at Thomas’s house with no recording device, a fact he is mysteriously unable to confess.
What unfolds from this dreamlike circumstance is both the unforgettable story of the triangle formed by Thomas, Max, and the narrator, and a brilliant meditation on those technologies that enrich or impoverish our connection to one another, that store or obliterate memory. Haunted by Kafka (there are echoes of “The Judgement” and “A Hunger Artist”), but utterly contemporary, Lerner combines trenchant insight with lyric mystery. Ultimately, Transcription demonstrates what only a work of fiction can record.
144 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2026
7 people are currently reading
3108 people want to read
About the author
Ben Lerner
70 books1,636 followersBen Lerner is an American poet, novelist, and critic. He was awarded the Hayden Carruth prize for his cycle of fifty-two sonnets, The Lichtenberg Figures. In 2004, Library Journal named it one of the year's twelve best books of poetry. The Lichtenberg Figures appeared in a German translation in 2010, for which it received the "Preis der Stadt Münster für internationale Poesie" in 2011, making Lerner the first American to receive this honor.
Born and raised in Topeka, which figures in each of his books of poetry, Lerner is a 1997 graduate of Topeka High School where he was a standout in debate and forensics. At Brown University he earned a B.A. in Political Theory and an MFA in Poetry. He traveled on a Fulbright Scholarship to Madrid, Spain in 2003 where he wrote his second book, Angle of Yaw, which was published in 2006 and was subsequently named a finalist for the National Book Award, and was selected by Brian Foley as one of the "25 important books of poetry of the 00s (2000-2009)". Lerner's third full-length poetry collection, Mean Free Path, was published in 2010.
Lerner's first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, was published by Coffee House Press in August 2011. It was named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and New York Magazine, among other periodicals. It won the Believer Book Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for "first fiction" and the New York Public Library's Young Lions prize.
In 2008 Lerner began editing poetry for Critical Quarterly, a British academic publication. He has taught at California College of the Arts, the University of Pittsburgh, and in 2010 joined the faculty of the MFA program at Brooklyn College.
Lerner's mother is the well-known psychologist Harriet Lerner.
Born and raised in Topeka, which figures in each of his books of poetry, Lerner is a 1997 graduate of Topeka High School where he was a standout in debate and forensics. At Brown University he earned a B.A. in Political Theory and an MFA in Poetry. He traveled on a Fulbright Scholarship to Madrid, Spain in 2003 where he wrote his second book, Angle of Yaw, which was published in 2006 and was subsequently named a finalist for the National Book Award, and was selected by Brian Foley as one of the "25 important books of poetry of the 00s (2000-2009)". Lerner's third full-length poetry collection, Mean Free Path, was published in 2010.
Lerner's first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, was published by Coffee House Press in August 2011. It was named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and New York Magazine, among other periodicals. It won the Believer Book Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for "first fiction" and the New York Public Library's Young Lions prize.
In 2008 Lerner began editing poetry for Critical Quarterly, a British academic publication. He has taught at California College of the Arts, the University of Pittsburgh, and in 2010 joined the faculty of the MFA program at Brooklyn College.
Lerner's mother is the well-known psychologist Harriet Lerner.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Okay, now I see why everyone and their mother is obsessed with Lerner: This short novel about technology and memory presents itself as an experimental ghost story about father figures, and it has no business being so suspenseful, because hardly anything actually happens. "Transcription" is split in three parts, each named after a hotel that is central to its plot line - let's have a look at them all:
Hotel Providence in Providence, RI
The unnamed narrator visits his now 90-year-old mentor Thomas from Brown University (where Lerner studied as well) to do an interview with him, and he is unable to grasp what the nonagenarian is hinting at when he says that he will soon travel to Switzerland. While the 45-year-old narrator had planned to record the conversation with his phone, he accidentally breaks it before the appointment and doesn't have the heart to admit it to the old man, thus talking to him only pretending to record.
The star of this chapter and the book as a whole is the way Lerner crafts his dialogue: The ruminations of the old, highly educated German-born Thomas who loves to go on tangents and fights his failing memory, and how they are juxtaposed with the thoughts of the middle-aged former mentee, now himself a father, trying to re-evaluate the past from his new position in life. As this is Lerner, we of course have puzzle elements throughout the chapter: Hanns Eisler, Werner Schroeter, the Rue des Rennes bombing etc. pp.
Hotel Villa Real in Madrid
After Thomas' death, there's a symposium about his work at the Museo Reina Sofía, where the narrator reveals that he has reconstructed parts of the interview with him from memory, thus sparking a debate whether that's permissible. Interviews are almost always edited, but where does falsification start, when does a conversation turn into fiction, what can and can't technology record?
Hotel Arbez in La Cure, Switzerland
The final part is crafted as a dialogue between Thomas' son Max and the narrator. They have been friends since college, where Thomas became a father figure to the narrator as well - now they are both fathers, thinking about their roles, how Thomas fulfilled his role and what shaped all of them.
The bass line of Lerner's novel is a timeless meditation on family and what it means to be a father, but it is amplified by the role of technology, what it can reveal and capture, how it can swallow us and make us disappear, how it can connect and separate us (yup, there's a COVID angle in there). There is no didacticism in the text, but a lot of subtlety and complexity, also in the construction of the story.
Also, Lerner gives us one of the funniest author promos ever: In a recording mirroring the one done by the narrator, he talks about his novel for two minutes, describing the content intricately and in a way that I would fully subscribe to, but for people who haven't read the novel, his explanations are still more or less useless: It's impossible to summarize even parts of the story from what Lerner says, and I love how that promo functions as a smart paratext (you can listen to it here).
A very worthwhile read, let's see how it performs in the awards circuit.
Hotel Providence in Providence, RI
The unnamed narrator visits his now 90-year-old mentor Thomas from Brown University (where Lerner studied as well) to do an interview with him, and he is unable to grasp what the nonagenarian is hinting at when he says that he will soon travel to Switzerland. While the 45-year-old narrator had planned to record the conversation with his phone, he accidentally breaks it before the appointment and doesn't have the heart to admit it to the old man, thus talking to him only pretending to record.
The star of this chapter and the book as a whole is the way Lerner crafts his dialogue: The ruminations of the old, highly educated German-born Thomas who loves to go on tangents and fights his failing memory, and how they are juxtaposed with the thoughts of the middle-aged former mentee, now himself a father, trying to re-evaluate the past from his new position in life. As this is Lerner, we of course have puzzle elements throughout the chapter: Hanns Eisler, Werner Schroeter, the Rue des Rennes bombing etc. pp.
Hotel Villa Real in Madrid
After Thomas' death, there's a symposium about his work at the Museo Reina Sofía, where the narrator reveals that he has reconstructed parts of the interview with him from memory, thus sparking a debate whether that's permissible. Interviews are almost always edited, but where does falsification start, when does a conversation turn into fiction, what can and can't technology record?
Hotel Arbez in La Cure, Switzerland
The final part is crafted as a dialogue between Thomas' son Max and the narrator. They have been friends since college, where Thomas became a father figure to the narrator as well - now they are both fathers, thinking about their roles, how Thomas fulfilled his role and what shaped all of them.
The bass line of Lerner's novel is a timeless meditation on family and what it means to be a father, but it is amplified by the role of technology, what it can reveal and capture, how it can swallow us and make us disappear, how it can connect and separate us (yup, there's a COVID angle in there). There is no didacticism in the text, but a lot of subtlety and complexity, also in the construction of the story.
Also, Lerner gives us one of the funniest author promos ever: In a recording mirroring the one done by the narrator, he talks about his novel for two minutes, describing the content intricately and in a way that I would fully subscribe to, but for people who haven't read the novel, his explanations are still more or less useless: It's impossible to summarize even parts of the story from what Lerner says, and I love how that promo functions as a smart paratext (you can listen to it here).
A very worthwhile read, let's see how it performs in the awards circuit.
August 27, 2025
Erudite and focusing on the liminal space between public persona and private family relationships. Echoes of earlier turns of phrase and thoughts reverberate in the narrative, as do themes of suicide and self harm
But trust me, no matter how great it was to have him as a mentor, you don’t want a spirit medium as a father.
An interviewer is on his way to Thomas, in his 90s, and a titan within the arts and a veritable walking encyclopaedia. In three sections Ben Lerner takes the interview with Thomas and reflects on the ethics of recording and editing these exchanges with someone whose mental faculties are in decline and how his son perceives Thomas. This first section, called Hotel Providence for the university town Thomas lives, draws the reader into memories resurfacing and comments on our relationship with technology (with a iPhone getting wet forming an important plot point) and questionable ethics of our narrator in interviewing a 90 year old who clearly seems to struggle.
Meanwhile beneath the surface violence seems to simmer, exemplified in offhand sentences like: It was conventional undergraduate stuff, but then, so is suicide.
[Hotel Villa Real], the second part of the book centres around a visit to Madrid at a kind of conference at a museum (Reina Sofia) on the work of Thomas. This section feels a lot like a chapter in Parade by Rachel Cusk and starts addressing the ethics of interviews with someone whose faculties are waning.
Finally in Hotel Arbez (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel...) we have a granddaughter who refuses to eat from a very young age. Clearly there are some frustrations of having Thomas as a father. ASMR and laissez-faire techniques are used in facing the immense frustration and powerlessness of the parents.
Technology again forms a major part here, and forms an interesting, non-judgemental commentary on our inability to truly connect with each other, and especially those closest to us: But our proximity just produced the most intense forms of estrangement
The style and themes of Transcription are reminiscent to the works of Katie Kitamura, Rachel Cusk and Jesse Ball, in how non-linearity of narrative (echoing between themselves), vagueness of place (even though we Covid-19 plays an important role in the last part of the book and we have Eva, a ten year old singing along to Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero) and different takes on events rendered earlier are important.
I enjoyed this short novel and this is definitely a book to watch out for when it is published, I think many will enjoy the erudite take on our modern world and our relationship with each other under barrages of screen time, recordings and the mythologies we create.
Quotes:
I didn’t find it. I woke up.
But waking doesn’t end the dream.
Sanity often requires the disavowal of the senses.
But trust me, no matter how great it was to have him as a mentor, you don’t want a spirit medium as a father.
An interviewer is on his way to Thomas, in his 90s, and a titan within the arts and a veritable walking encyclopaedia. In three sections Ben Lerner takes the interview with Thomas and reflects on the ethics of recording and editing these exchanges with someone whose mental faculties are in decline and how his son perceives Thomas. This first section, called Hotel Providence for the university town Thomas lives, draws the reader into memories resurfacing and comments on our relationship with technology (with a iPhone getting wet forming an important plot point) and questionable ethics of our narrator in interviewing a 90 year old who clearly seems to struggle.
Meanwhile beneath the surface violence seems to simmer, exemplified in offhand sentences like: It was conventional undergraduate stuff, but then, so is suicide.
[Hotel Villa Real], the second part of the book centres around a visit to Madrid at a kind of conference at a museum (Reina Sofia) on the work of Thomas. This section feels a lot like a chapter in Parade by Rachel Cusk and starts addressing the ethics of interviews with someone whose faculties are waning.
Finally in Hotel Arbez (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel...) we have a granddaughter who refuses to eat from a very young age. Clearly there are some frustrations of having Thomas as a father. ASMR and laissez-faire techniques are used in facing the immense frustration and powerlessness of the parents.
Technology again forms a major part here, and forms an interesting, non-judgemental commentary on our inability to truly connect with each other, and especially those closest to us: But our proximity just produced the most intense forms of estrangement
The style and themes of Transcription are reminiscent to the works of Katie Kitamura, Rachel Cusk and Jesse Ball, in how non-linearity of narrative (echoing between themselves), vagueness of place (even though we Covid-19 plays an important role in the last part of the book and we have Eva, a ten year old singing along to Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero) and different takes on events rendered earlier are important.
I enjoyed this short novel and this is definitely a book to watch out for when it is published, I think many will enjoy the erudite take on our modern world and our relationship with each other under barrages of screen time, recordings and the mythologies we create.
Quotes:
I didn’t find it. I woke up.
But waking doesn’t end the dream.
Sanity often requires the disavowal of the senses.
Read
October 11, 2025Ben Lerner in my personal Mt Rushmore of white straight guys allowed to keep writing books
November 22, 2025
In a world where our devices seem to run interference with our being in the world, with our connections to others. How we now live and see the world as filtered through our devices. We even see family death through our device, just as we’ve just seen the Gazan genocide online. How does this affect us? Are we just another device ourselves and can turn ourselves of like we do the devices?
Transcription is the work of a poet who puts us in the space between. The place between our private lives and our public lives especially if we are ‘famous’. The place between the ‘good use’ of our devices and becoming addicted to them. The place between being independent human beings with our own agency and being an addendum to our devices in a place where we cannot function without them. With his spotlight on our children, Lerner explores how these in between spaces can affect them as well. How we’ve made our devices part of their being as well and the possible results.
An ARC kindly provided by author/publisher via Netgalley.
Transcription is the work of a poet who puts us in the space between. The place between our private lives and our public lives especially if we are ‘famous’. The place between the ‘good use’ of our devices and becoming addicted to them. The place between being independent human beings with our own agency and being an addendum to our devices in a place where we cannot function without them. With his spotlight on our children, Lerner explores how these in between spaces can affect them as well. How we’ve made our devices part of their being as well and the possible results.
An ARC kindly provided by author/publisher via Netgalley.
not-for-me
November 14, 2025so, i was wrong...
---
the cover looks vaguely like Universality, which was my favourite read of 2024, so that means this could be my favourite of 2025, right?
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the cover looks vaguely like Universality, which was my favourite read of 2024, so that means this could be my favourite of 2025, right?
December 7, 2025
Ugh it’s so good when writers write. I love how this is all tangled up in itself.
December 29, 2025
Thought this would be unbearably arch, the sort of novel thrown together while Ben was on sabbatical, but I was surprisingly moved by it. More thoughtful than clever, which isn't always the case with Atocha Station and 10:04. Reminded me of Coetzee's novel Elizabeth Costello, and reminded me of having a smart, remote professor dad.
November 1, 2025
I was intrigued to read Transcription by Ben Lerner because I enjoyed his poetry book The Lights. This was my first novel by him and I enjoyed it too! I liked the structure to the writing as each chapter is named after a different hotel and takes place in a different time. I enjoyed the dialogue which included texts with abbreviations like Lmk and Ofc. The book begins with a man traveling to interview an author and he has dropped his phone in the sink so he has no way to record the interview. It’s interesting the way we learn about the relationship between the interviewer and the author and then what happens after and the change in point of view and the reflection on that specific interview and the author’s life and relationship with his son and niece. Definitely engaging writing and I’m looking forward to reading more from Lerner.
Thank you to FSG Books via NetGalley for my ARC!
Thank you to FSG Books via NetGalley for my ARC!
September 2, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an eARC of this novel.
This is a masterclass is brevity. TRANSCRIPTION might be the first great contemporary Post-COVID novel that tackles the nature of societal isolation and fear. I have mostly felt that contemporary novels of the past couple of years have shoehorned in conversations of the pandemic without serving the greater work of art (outside of Greenwell's SMALL RAIN, whose similar use of monologues and chamber storytelling could sit alongside this novel). Into this fear, Lerner interrogates the multifaceted nature of technology: tech that unites us, tech that distracts us, tech that forces our hand. In just 144 pages, he really analyzes the contemporary malaise of the tether to our devices. Ultimately, though, this is a novel of family. In 3 sections, Lerner creates a lush diorama of family in the 21st century, specifically along the father/child dyad. It's complicated and comparative, incredibly compelling until the last sentence. I cannot recommend this (and all of Lerner's fiction) enough. This should practically be required reading as human beings (with iPhones).
TRANSCRIPTION releases April 7, 2026
This is a masterclass is brevity. TRANSCRIPTION might be the first great contemporary Post-COVID novel that tackles the nature of societal isolation and fear. I have mostly felt that contemporary novels of the past couple of years have shoehorned in conversations of the pandemic without serving the greater work of art (outside of Greenwell's SMALL RAIN, whose similar use of monologues and chamber storytelling could sit alongside this novel). Into this fear, Lerner interrogates the multifaceted nature of technology: tech that unites us, tech that distracts us, tech that forces our hand. In just 144 pages, he really analyzes the contemporary malaise of the tether to our devices. Ultimately, though, this is a novel of family. In 3 sections, Lerner creates a lush diorama of family in the 21st century, specifically along the father/child dyad. It's complicated and comparative, incredibly compelling until the last sentence. I cannot recommend this (and all of Lerner's fiction) enough. This should practically be required reading as human beings (with iPhones).
TRANSCRIPTION releases April 7, 2026
December 11, 2025
I love Ben Lerner, I feel he is so underrated in this current time of literature. The writing in this book was up there with some of his best, however the story was by far the least engaging thing he’s ever written in my honest opinion. Someone else might feel differently and connect but the fragmented shortness of this book in general didn’t allow for enough of what he was trying to get across. The first part is strong, the second felt wasted, and the third was a boring, albeit well written, slog.
December 28, 2025
Once again I have been reminded of the Purpose of Art
November 19, 2025
really impressive. I liked how the majority of the book was dialogue. I also, quite frankly, liked how the poetic German professor didn't get to speak that much (initially my heart was sinking - i.e. "is this going to be the whole book?"). A poetic and weird book overall about voices and voice. definitely better than the Topeka school which I barely remember. AI could never write this book, it is way too fragmented and weird, which is a huge testament of the power of literature over The Machine. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
August 25, 2025
“…Two realities in one space; now I’m unclear which reality was more real.”
Lerner’s novels break open how I think about making meaning out of fiction and out of life, and what happens when the two intersect or overlap. This is animated by a lot of compelling questions, including: how does technology get us closer to and further from objective reality, if there even is such a thing…and, if there is, how much does it matter? How do technologies (including the novel!) help and hinder how we connect with and see each other? That it can ask such big questions, turn them over in several ways, and still feel palpably human all along is Lerner’s real gift.
This is a true stunner that’s well-served by its concision. I ate it up in a rapturous trance. I’m looking forward to reading essays on this when it comes out.
Lerner’s novels break open how I think about making meaning out of fiction and out of life, and what happens when the two intersect or overlap. This is animated by a lot of compelling questions, including: how does technology get us closer to and further from objective reality, if there even is such a thing…and, if there is, how much does it matter? How do technologies (including the novel!) help and hinder how we connect with and see each other? That it can ask such big questions, turn them over in several ways, and still feel palpably human all along is Lerner’s real gift.
This is a true stunner that’s well-served by its concision. I ate it up in a rapturous trance. I’m looking forward to reading essays on this when it comes out.
August 30, 2025
well... he did again folks.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Transcription reminded me a little of Audition by Katie Kitamura, but it was more accessible and touching at the same time. This comparison stems from the subtle shifts in reality between the different sections, even though Lerner presents not only two like Kitamura, but three of them to us.
The first part is titled Hotel Providence. We follow a man on his way to interview Thomas, a legend in his field who is well into his 90s. However, shortly before he leaves the hotel, his phone falls into water, meaning he cannot record the interview. Rather than solving the issue or informing Thomas, he decides to improvise. He ends up with interviewing an old man who is clearly not in full possession of his faculties, and with a conversation that seems to blend different times and people together.
Hotel Villa Real then focuses on the same interviewer, recounting the story in remembrance of Thomas. But what he sees as a self-deprecating, funny narrative becomes a minor scandal for others, who now see this last interview as not only exploitative, but also faked. The question of what constitutes authenticity and dignity comes to the forefront.
The focus shifts again in part three, Hotel Arbez, this time to Thomas's son and his daughter, the latter of whom has great difficulty eating. This Thomas is not a leading expert or a hero in his field, but a loving, albeit distant, grandfather and a father who was never quite able (or willing) to bridge the gap between the emotional needs of his son and himself.
Throughout the stories, technology plays an important role: the image of the presence of the absent and the absence of the present repeats over and over. Questions of language, communication, family, trust and meaning arise.
This novel was a great read: erudite, subtle and quiet. I really appreciated the prose and felt there was much more to discover on a second and third reading. I would highly recommend this to literary readers who enjoy immersing themselves in a book and reflecting on our lives, our communities and technology.
The first part is titled Hotel Providence. We follow a man on his way to interview Thomas, a legend in his field who is well into his 90s. However, shortly before he leaves the hotel, his phone falls into water, meaning he cannot record the interview. Rather than solving the issue or informing Thomas, he decides to improvise. He ends up with interviewing an old man who is clearly not in full possession of his faculties, and with a conversation that seems to blend different times and people together.
Hotel Villa Real then focuses on the same interviewer, recounting the story in remembrance of Thomas. But what he sees as a self-deprecating, funny narrative becomes a minor scandal for others, who now see this last interview as not only exploitative, but also faked. The question of what constitutes authenticity and dignity comes to the forefront.
The focus shifts again in part three, Hotel Arbez, this time to Thomas's son and his daughter, the latter of whom has great difficulty eating. This Thomas is not a leading expert or a hero in his field, but a loving, albeit distant, grandfather and a father who was never quite able (or willing) to bridge the gap between the emotional needs of his son and himself.
Throughout the stories, technology plays an important role: the image of the presence of the absent and the absence of the present repeats over and over. Questions of language, communication, family, trust and meaning arise.
This novel was a great read: erudite, subtle and quiet. I really appreciated the prose and felt there was much more to discover on a second and third reading. I would highly recommend this to literary readers who enjoy immersing themselves in a book and reflecting on our lives, our communities and technology.
August 20, 2025
Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. The narrator of this book comes to Providence to interview Thomas, his 90 year old mentor and a towering figure in the arts. The narrator drops his smartphone in a sink and is forced to record the interview by written notes and is too mortified to admit this to Thomas. As stressful as this is, Thomas at times also confuses the narrator for his son Max, who is also a friend of the narrator’s. Filled with rich dialogue, this simple story moves forward and slips into surreal moments.
November 17, 2025
these screens, my love, they dull our senses.
part poetry, part erudite commentary, Transcription tackles a collection of timely and complex balancing acts. all three parts center around our yearning for connection in a deeply disconnected world dominated by phone screens, and how this has altered our picture of the “normal” family.
what i love most about transcription lies in the title itself — the novel is a recollection. we are told this story through a collection of memories, many of which are delivered doubtfully or through clouded vision. i’m a sucker for unreliable narrators, and i’d go as far as to say that Lerner has mastered the use of it contextually and thematically.
this is a short read, one that can definitely be devoured in one sitting. i recommend that you do, because it’s definitely worth it.
thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC!
part poetry, part erudite commentary, Transcription tackles a collection of timely and complex balancing acts. all three parts center around our yearning for connection in a deeply disconnected world dominated by phone screens, and how this has altered our picture of the “normal” family.
what i love most about transcription lies in the title itself — the novel is a recollection. we are told this story through a collection of memories, many of which are delivered doubtfully or through clouded vision. i’m a sucker for unreliable narrators, and i’d go as far as to say that Lerner has mastered the use of it contextually and thematically.
this is a short read, one that can definitely be devoured in one sitting. i recommend that you do, because it’s definitely worth it.
thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with the ARC!
February 4, 2026
Benny boy does it again
Read
January 2, 2026esme and elisa ur tastes are incredible, i kneel at the altar of my hot friends
September 3, 2025
Maybe this went over my head a bit. I was captivated by the initial setup of the narrator travelling to meet up with Thomas, but after the first night of conversation the story just got dull and went off on a lot of random side stories (this is mainly Thomas telling anecdotes).
October 30, 2025
I kept seeing the flowers as organic one instant and as artificial the next, a kind of duck–rabbit effect, not between things the object might represent, but between nature and culture, the given and the constructed. And I carried this new way of looking, or this new hinge in my looking, outside the museum: when my sister dragged me camping, for instance, I was typically unmoved by “unspoiled” mountain views; after the glass flowers, I would see cracks in the rock face as penciled, as a history of small decisions, and then experience the view as beautiful. I could will myself to see the rose and pink of a sunset as applied in touches or stains and then revert to seeing it as natural; and so on. It was with Anisa that I first became conscious of this quiet but crucial technique, somewhere between a child’s game, a CBT exercise, and a religion. Eventually I’d call this “fiction.”
This is the American poet, essayist, and critic’s fourth novel - due to be published in April 2026 – and following on from “Leaving the Atocha Station” (2011) – 2012 James Tait Black Memorial Prize Finalist, “10:04” (2014) – 2015 Folio Prize Finalist and “The Topeka School” (2019) – 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, 2019 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner. 2020 Pulitzer Prize finalist – but the first I have read.
An article in People Magazine earlier this year contained some excellent descriptions of the novel by the author – both its conception and its manifesto: "A book about fathers and sons, a book about male friendship and rivalry, about parenting in a burning world. … about all the love and pain and confusion these intergenerational relationships involve … about how changing technologies — particularly smartphones — alter the ways we interact with one another, how they help connect us or drive us apart, how they might enhance or erase our memories …. and it’s about how the air is full of messages, full of disembodied voices, full of ghosts. And while there is no disputing the power of the screen, this book is ultimately an argument for the page — that art, that fiction, can record something your iPhone can’t”.
The short novel is told in three parts: Hotel Providence, Hotel Villa Real (which is much the shortest) and Hotel Arbez – with both the first and third heavily referencing/influenced by Kafka short stories: “The Judgement” (concerning a man, his father and the father’s closer friendship and correspondence with his son’s friend) and “The Hunger Artist” respectively.
The set up of the story is that the unnamed first party narrator of the first and second parts (and the person addressed in the third part) travels to Providence to meet with something of a giant in the art world – Thomas, the father of the narrator’s college friend Max, and a lifelong mentor to the narrator. Thomas has just turned 90 and his eccentricities (including his ability to turn any conversation into a series of erudite abstractions) are turning into possible dementia.
Crucially the narrator drops his phone in water which has two impacts. The immediate one for his interview with Thomas is that he cannot record it – something he tries to get around admitting by obfuscation. The second and most striking on a first read of this section is that being without his phone acts almost as a form of time travel to the past.
I was having an unusual experience of presence—more aware of silicates glittering in the asphalt, the little plumes of vapor that were my breath, the articulation of branches and their shadows on the sidewalk—but I was also walking into my past, because this was a landscape so dense with formative memories and events, and because only in the past would I be deviceless …. But it wasn’t just people: the light arriving from the stars was younger, too, the birds dreaming in the tree cavities were the birds of the past, growth rings had vanished from the trees in which they slept—and this time travel depended on my being prevented from checking on Eva or Googling “songbird life expectancy” or “Caroline Sharpe” as I walked uphill.
In the second section though when the narrator meets with a group of others at something of a tribute to Thomas – and tells some of the story of this encounter (one which ends as the increasingly reclusive Thomas’s last ever interview) – he is shocked at the negative reaction his story provokes – the other participants furious that, in their view, he is effectively admitting that the interview was faked, an interview that was already seen as in bad taste (particularly by Max) as taking advantage of a man of declining mental facilities.
The third section is a one-sided dialogue as Max tells the narrator various incidents involving his relationship with Thomas including difficulties with Max’s young daughter (who had a close bond with Thomas) who suffers from an eating disorder for which the only breakthrough seems to be You Tube Unboxing videos “ASMR treats ARFID.”; Thomas’s near death in hospital in the early days of COVID and crucially an incident when Max (whose relationship with his father is distant and strained ever since the death of Max’s mother when he was young and his subsequent packing off to boarding schools) uses what he thinks is his last phone call with his dying father (held over a nurse’s phone after a Zoom call fails) to confess his thoughts and feelings – a call of which Thomas subsequently has no recall; a subsequent visit to his father where his experience of lockdown is similar to the narrator’s of being sans phone (and subsequently many other parts echo with the first section - causing us to question its very nature).
I was reminded of course of Katie Kitamura’s “Audition” but I feel this novel had more emotional resonance - particularly in the hospital COVID scene.
The late 19th Century, Bohemian father and son glass artists Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka – crafters of botanical models from glass, most famously Havard’s glass flower collection – are also a recurring theme in the novel (including at its end). I was not sure if the link/allusion I immediately had to the glass of an IPhone screen was deliberate – but I suspect in a novel as thoughtful as this little is accidental.
Overall, I found this an extremely intelligent and thought provoking novel – and one I would love (and expect to see) on some 2026 prize lists
My thanks to Farrar Strauss and Giroux and to Granta for an ARC via NetGalley
I wanted to hurt him. Once—only once—did I tell him about my concern with Emmie’s eating, and before the word ‘Hungerkünstler’ was fully out of his mouth, before he could quote his beloved Kafka at me, or launch into some discourse about the history of pre-Christian asceticism, I snapped at him in German: This is not … theater, Dad, this isn’t art or literature, Emmie isn’t a character in a fiction, she’s my .. daughter.
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August 28, 2025Literature of resonance
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I honestly don’t know how I feel about ‘Transcription’. Is it clever, or is it one of those books people pretend to get and enthuse about in order to make themselves seem clever? I’d need to reread it a few times in order to decide, but the story isn’t compelling enough, nor the writing remarkable enough, to make me want to do so.
The novella is split into three uneven sections. In the first section, a forty-something-year-old man meets with his ageing mentor to conduct a final interview; however, he breaks his phone and so is unable to record the interview, and rather than resolving the problem quite easily by confessing to the broken phone, he decides to lie and conducts the interview without any recording device. I honestly don’t know why the man didn’t just explain what happened, especially as he has a long friendship with his mentor, who would surely understand, and so the whole situation feels very contrived. This shattered the fictive dream for me. I also couldn’t relate to the man’s almost comically exaggerated dependency on his phone. It felt like a farce—which would be fine if it were intentional, but I don’t think that it was.
In the second section, after having given a speech following the death of the mentor in which he confesses to having not recorded the final interview and having instead written his article partly based on memory, the man meets with other mentees, who turn out to be less than happy that he didn’t work from a transcription. This section is very short and doesn’t go anywhere, acting more as a thematic bridge than a narrative development. Perhaps it could have served a purpose had the third section built and expanded on it, but instead the third section veers in a different direction, making the second section feel out of place and superfluous.
In the third section, the son of the mentor speaks at length to the man about how he spoke to his father over the phone when it seemed like his father would die from COVID and how he was finally able to say the things he needed to say, how he used his phone without consent to record his father’s voice so he’d be able to listen back to it when his father did eventually die, and how his daughter, diagnosed with ARFID, was at last able to start eating again when she used videos on her tablet as a distraction while eating. This section is moving in places, but although it echoes and plays with the previous sections, it doesn’t bring the parts together into a cohesive whole or elevate the story.
Indeed, there doesn’t really seem to be a ‘story’ as such. There is no goal, no rising tension, no climax, no change. I reached the end without the sense that the words had gone anywhere or imparted any meaning. Of course, there is the obvious commentary on how modern technology—specifically smartphones and tablets—can both enable connectedness or lead to disconnectedness, can both lead to harm or enable healing. But this seems too obvious, too simplistic and trite, to be the real point.
Which leaves me wondering, what is the point? What is the author trying to say or achieve? As a regular reader of literary fiction, I don’t mind having to work for a story, but I need more to work with.
Overall, an unsatisfying read.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Ben Lerner and Granta Publications for the ARC.
⚠️ Mental illness, suicide references, eating disorder, COVID pandemic
The novella is split into three uneven sections. In the first section, a forty-something-year-old man meets with his ageing mentor to conduct a final interview; however, he breaks his phone and so is unable to record the interview, and rather than resolving the problem quite easily by confessing to the broken phone, he decides to lie and conducts the interview without any recording device. I honestly don’t know why the man didn’t just explain what happened, especially as he has a long friendship with his mentor, who would surely understand, and so the whole situation feels very contrived. This shattered the fictive dream for me. I also couldn’t relate to the man’s almost comically exaggerated dependency on his phone. It felt like a farce—which would be fine if it were intentional, but I don’t think that it was.
In the second section, after having given a speech following the death of the mentor in which he confesses to having not recorded the final interview and having instead written his article partly based on memory, the man meets with other mentees, who turn out to be less than happy that he didn’t work from a transcription. This section is very short and doesn’t go anywhere, acting more as a thematic bridge than a narrative development. Perhaps it could have served a purpose had the third section built and expanded on it, but instead the third section veers in a different direction, making the second section feel out of place and superfluous.
In the third section, the son of the mentor speaks at length to the man about how he spoke to his father over the phone when it seemed like his father would die from COVID and how he was finally able to say the things he needed to say, how he used his phone without consent to record his father’s voice so he’d be able to listen back to it when his father did eventually die, and how his daughter, diagnosed with ARFID, was at last able to start eating again when she used videos on her tablet as a distraction while eating. This section is moving in places, but although it echoes and plays with the previous sections, it doesn’t bring the parts together into a cohesive whole or elevate the story.
Indeed, there doesn’t really seem to be a ‘story’ as such. There is no goal, no rising tension, no climax, no change. I reached the end without the sense that the words had gone anywhere or imparted any meaning. Of course, there is the obvious commentary on how modern technology—specifically smartphones and tablets—can both enable connectedness or lead to disconnectedness, can both lead to harm or enable healing. But this seems too obvious, too simplistic and trite, to be the real point.
Which leaves me wondering, what is the point? What is the author trying to say or achieve? As a regular reader of literary fiction, I don’t mind having to work for a story, but I need more to work with.
Overall, an unsatisfying read.
Many thanks to NetGalley, Ben Lerner and Granta Publications for the ARC.
⚠️ Mental illness, suicide references, eating disorder, COVID pandemic
August 28, 2025
Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the ARC of this novel.
One of the fond memories I have of my time as a graduate English major were the days when we would sit around the conference table and go over, talk about, discuss, and even argue over a novel. Those exchanges answered questions, expanded themes you hadn’t considered, brought to light connections that were missed. The process of going over the novel with people who saw things you didn’t, whose take on the novel as a whole was different than yours, gave one a deeper appreciation of the novel, of what the novel was trying to accomplish when in the hands of the reader.
Ben Lerner’s Transcription is one of those novels I wish I had a room full of readers to go over the scenes with, the themes, the ideas. It is a short book with a fairly straightforward structure: A former student goes back to interview his famous mentor, things happen (I don’t like to give specifics in reviews), and the repercussions from that encounter make up the rest of the novel. Yet within the structure there are tangents, offshoots where we venture off to other times, other places. Lerner has the ability to create moments of philosophical, sometimes metaphysical, depth from the most mundane moments that pull you away from the main narrative to focus on this thought or idea, then cast you back to the story as if nothing has happened. But now you’re reading the main story with this additional little kernel of an idea floating around in your mind, and it can’t help but shift the interpretation of what you’re reading, adding a different color, a different tone. It’s masterful if sometimes maddening because that’s when I want to put the novel down and ask “Why?”
Transcription: Even the title is begging for interpretation. There are sections in the novel that read like transcriptions, sections of just back-and-forth dialogue, Q&A style. Does that give them more authority? More authenticity? What, exactly, is being transcribed? I’ve read Lerner’s other novels, so I know I have to come up with my own answers, my own interpretation. And this, fundamentally, is the pleasure of this novel. Transcription is a satisfying novel on one hand—the story feels complete, the final section complements the first section giving the novel an almost circular feel—but it does linger in the mind. Sitting here almost two days after finishing it, I am still thinking about many things in the novel: the importance of this or that scene, the brief appearances of certain characters, the meaning of the final section of text in the novel. Why the brackets [you’ll have to read the novel to understand]? The novel is short enough that I will probably reread it just to see if I can come up with answers to my own questions.
If I’ve muddled the review so you don’t know what I’m saying (which I tend to do), this is what I’m saying: Transcription is a very interesting, well-written novel with emotional depth that comes to a satisfying conclusion. And it is also a novel with great ideas and views that make you pause, nod your head, or shake it in disagreement, a novel that raises questions about the meaning of our existence in these recent times and the resonances from the past that continue to affect us in our present. The novel asks questions, and most great novels do.
One of the fond memories I have of my time as a graduate English major were the days when we would sit around the conference table and go over, talk about, discuss, and even argue over a novel. Those exchanges answered questions, expanded themes you hadn’t considered, brought to light connections that were missed. The process of going over the novel with people who saw things you didn’t, whose take on the novel as a whole was different than yours, gave one a deeper appreciation of the novel, of what the novel was trying to accomplish when in the hands of the reader.
Ben Lerner’s Transcription is one of those novels I wish I had a room full of readers to go over the scenes with, the themes, the ideas. It is a short book with a fairly straightforward structure: A former student goes back to interview his famous mentor, things happen (I don’t like to give specifics in reviews), and the repercussions from that encounter make up the rest of the novel. Yet within the structure there are tangents, offshoots where we venture off to other times, other places. Lerner has the ability to create moments of philosophical, sometimes metaphysical, depth from the most mundane moments that pull you away from the main narrative to focus on this thought or idea, then cast you back to the story as if nothing has happened. But now you’re reading the main story with this additional little kernel of an idea floating around in your mind, and it can’t help but shift the interpretation of what you’re reading, adding a different color, a different tone. It’s masterful if sometimes maddening because that’s when I want to put the novel down and ask “Why?”
Transcription: Even the title is begging for interpretation. There are sections in the novel that read like transcriptions, sections of just back-and-forth dialogue, Q&A style. Does that give them more authority? More authenticity? What, exactly, is being transcribed? I’ve read Lerner’s other novels, so I know I have to come up with my own answers, my own interpretation. And this, fundamentally, is the pleasure of this novel. Transcription is a satisfying novel on one hand—the story feels complete, the final section complements the first section giving the novel an almost circular feel—but it does linger in the mind. Sitting here almost two days after finishing it, I am still thinking about many things in the novel: the importance of this or that scene, the brief appearances of certain characters, the meaning of the final section of text in the novel. Why the brackets [you’ll have to read the novel to understand]? The novel is short enough that I will probably reread it just to see if I can come up with answers to my own questions.
If I’ve muddled the review so you don’t know what I’m saying (which I tend to do), this is what I’m saying: Transcription is a very interesting, well-written novel with emotional depth that comes to a satisfying conclusion. And it is also a novel with great ideas and views that make you pause, nod your head, or shake it in disagreement, a novel that raises questions about the meaning of our existence in these recent times and the resonances from the past that continue to affect us in our present. The novel asks questions, and most great novels do.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
In terms of appeal... If you like books such as 'Audition' by Katie Katimura, or 'Universality' by Natasha Brown, then I think you will more likely enjoy this book. It has a similar obscurity, is split into three sections, each of which look at a period of around 4-5 hours and requires the reader to work in order to get the most out of it. For me, it was not a fit, but I think this is because I don't resonate strongly with experimental fiction. I gave Audition and Universality 3-3.5 stars.
The novella is split into three parts, each named after a Hotel. Part 1 - Hotel Providence, is set in Providence, Rhode Island., scene of the narrator's college and the location where he will interview his old professor and mentor. Part 2 - Hotel Villa Real - is set in Madrid, where the narrator, amongst others, gives a talk about Thomas and his work. And Part 3 - Hotel Arbez - is a hotel that Thomas, Max and narrator once visited, that straddles France and Switzerland in Geneva, but this part of the story takes place in Los Angeles and is almost a one sided conversation between Max and the narrator, with Max recounting issues with his daughter and father (Thomas).
There are many themes running throughout the work. There are three primary relationships, between Thomas, Max (son of Thomas) and the narrator (student of Thomas and college friend to Max), which are all complex and strained. There are also a number of secondary relationships. There is a lot to unpack.
Then there is the relationship with technology, the phone that does not record, the use of screen time as a reward, the use of screen time as a distraction, the use of the iPad and phone to make a connection.
To me, it appears to be an analysis of how people connect (or not) with each other and with technological devices. It also grazes over some pretty big societal issues, such as aging, assisted dying, suicide, eating disorders, anxiety, parental styles, as well as ethical issues, such as consent to record, right to interpret an interview without recording, and whether the narrator should interview and publish an interview when they are aware the subject is not right of mind.
All of this is squeezed into 144 pages, and here in lies the problem for me. I felt it left me to do all the work of trying to piece it altogether. The characters while clearly multifaceted, are not explored, so feel one dimensional. Each section, which is a short period of time, maybe 4-5 hours do not naturally connect. I would have appreciated the story being more interwoven and to consider further the issues that are raised.
Thank you to Granta Books and NetGalley for the advance copy.
Read more of my reviews: https://yarrabookclub.wordpress.com/
The novella is split into three parts, each named after a Hotel. Part 1 - Hotel Providence, is set in Providence, Rhode Island., scene of the narrator's college and the location where he will interview his old professor and mentor. Part 2 - Hotel Villa Real - is set in Madrid, where the narrator, amongst others, gives a talk about Thomas and his work. And Part 3 - Hotel Arbez - is a hotel that Thomas, Max and narrator once visited, that straddles France and Switzerland in Geneva, but this part of the story takes place in Los Angeles and is almost a one sided conversation between Max and the narrator, with Max recounting issues with his daughter and father (Thomas).
There are many themes running throughout the work. There are three primary relationships, between Thomas, Max (son of Thomas) and the narrator (student of Thomas and college friend to Max), which are all complex and strained. There are also a number of secondary relationships. There is a lot to unpack.
Then there is the relationship with technology, the phone that does not record, the use of screen time as a reward, the use of screen time as a distraction, the use of the iPad and phone to make a connection.
To me, it appears to be an analysis of how people connect (or not) with each other and with technological devices. It also grazes over some pretty big societal issues, such as aging, assisted dying, suicide, eating disorders, anxiety, parental styles, as well as ethical issues, such as consent to record, right to interpret an interview without recording, and whether the narrator should interview and publish an interview when they are aware the subject is not right of mind.
All of this is squeezed into 144 pages, and here in lies the problem for me. I felt it left me to do all the work of trying to piece it altogether. The characters while clearly multifaceted, are not explored, so feel one dimensional. Each section, which is a short period of time, maybe 4-5 hours do not naturally connect. I would have appreciated the story being more interwoven and to consider further the issues that are raised.
Thank you to Granta Books and NetGalley for the advance copy.
Read more of my reviews: https://yarrabookclub.wordpress.com/
November 11, 2025
Transcription is an accomplished and thought provoking novel that masterfully examines intergenerational relationships and how our smartphones are both connecting and dividing us.
The book is constructed in three sections, each named for a hotel.
In the first part, Hotel Providence, the narrator, is on his way to interview his ninety year old mentor and father of his college friend Max, when he accidentally drops his smartphone into the sink. Thomas, who is widely esteemed in the arts world, is assuming that their conversation is being recorded. The narrator for unknown reasons, doesn’t admit that his device is not working.
In the second part, Hotel Villa Real, there is an event to remember and celebrate Thomas’ life. The narrator is berated by some of the attendees for deceiving the old man, in what has turned out to be his last published interview.
In the third part, Hotel Arbez, Max is telling the narrator about his difficult relationship with Thomas since his mother died when he was a young boy. How he is trying to be good parent to his young daughter who is struggling with an eating disorder and poignantly, about a difficult phone call when his father was ill and he thought he would never see him again.
“I couldn’t shake the suspicion - a suspicion that was a childish form of hope - that he had taken it in, that it hadn’t disappeared, that it was transcribed somewhere inside him.”
This intelligent and beautifully written book non judgementally reflects on our dependence on smart devices, their impacts on our relationships, their limitations, possible harms and their effects on how we may or may not remember.
The author allow us to imagine the length of time lapsed and the events between the three parts
It is a book that I will be thinking about for a long time.
My sincere thanks to Granta Publications for this advanced copy via NetGalley.
The book is constructed in three sections, each named for a hotel.
In the first part, Hotel Providence, the narrator, is on his way to interview his ninety year old mentor and father of his college friend Max, when he accidentally drops his smartphone into the sink. Thomas, who is widely esteemed in the arts world, is assuming that their conversation is being recorded. The narrator for unknown reasons, doesn’t admit that his device is not working.
In the second part, Hotel Villa Real, there is an event to remember and celebrate Thomas’ life. The narrator is berated by some of the attendees for deceiving the old man, in what has turned out to be his last published interview.
In the third part, Hotel Arbez, Max is telling the narrator about his difficult relationship with Thomas since his mother died when he was a young boy. How he is trying to be good parent to his young daughter who is struggling with an eating disorder and poignantly, about a difficult phone call when his father was ill and he thought he would never see him again.
“I couldn’t shake the suspicion - a suspicion that was a childish form of hope - that he had taken it in, that it hadn’t disappeared, that it was transcribed somewhere inside him.”
This intelligent and beautifully written book non judgementally reflects on our dependence on smart devices, their impacts on our relationships, their limitations, possible harms and their effects on how we may or may not remember.
The author allow us to imagine the length of time lapsed and the events between the three parts
It is a book that I will be thinking about for a long time.
My sincere thanks to Granta Publications for this advanced copy via NetGalley.
November 29, 2025
Transcription is a compact, sharply focused novella in three parts (or at least three loosely distinguished segments), which begins when the unnamed narrator travels to Providence, Rhode Island — his purpose: to conduct what is intended as the final published interview with his former mentor, a ninety-year-old academic and artist of considerable gravitas. This initial segment gives the book a deceptively simple premise, but the collapse of his plans — after he drops his phone in the sink and arrives at his mentor’s house without a recording device — sets the novel on a subtly disorienting course.
Stripped of modern convenience, the narrator is forced to rely on pen and paper — a constraint that underlies the book’s deeper reflection on memory, technology, and what it means to “record” a life. Lerner draws out a tense emotional triangle between the narrator, the elderly mentor (Thomas), and Max — the mentor’s son and the narrator’s old friend. Through their interactions and silences, the novel becomes a meditation on how technology both enables and impoverishes human connection and memory.
The prose is understated, elegant and suggestive, with a dreamlike quality that feels deliberate: the lack of a recording device becomes a metaphor for loss, absence and the ineluctable fragility of recollection. As others have noted, this gives the novel a Kafka-like edge — resonances of ambiguity and psychological tension haunt the narrative.
Transcription has been compared by some to Audition. It remains to be seen whether Transcription will find its way onto 2026 literary awards shortlists. I suspect it might.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.
Stripped of modern convenience, the narrator is forced to rely on pen and paper — a constraint that underlies the book’s deeper reflection on memory, technology, and what it means to “record” a life. Lerner draws out a tense emotional triangle between the narrator, the elderly mentor (Thomas), and Max — the mentor’s son and the narrator’s old friend. Through their interactions and silences, the novel becomes a meditation on how technology both enables and impoverishes human connection and memory.
The prose is understated, elegant and suggestive, with a dreamlike quality that feels deliberate: the lack of a recording device becomes a metaphor for loss, absence and the ineluctable fragility of recollection. As others have noted, this gives the novel a Kafka-like edge — resonances of ambiguity and psychological tension haunt the narrative.
Transcription has been compared by some to Audition. It remains to be seen whether Transcription will find its way onto 2026 literary awards shortlists. I suspect it might.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thanks to NetGalley and Granta for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
This is not the kind of book I would normally choose, and I haven't read any of Ben's previous work, and so I was going into this blind.
There are some looooooooooooong sentences which took some getting used to.
There's not much in the way of plot, and very little character development to be honest, and yet somehow it isn't dull. I think that's partly to do with the short page length, anything too much longer and the lack of substance might have made it drag. And because of the short page count, it zoomed by and I read it in a couple of hours.
It is fascinating, a real insight into humanity and what we hear when we're actually listening. It looks at what we're missing because we live our lives through screens, we think we can't survive without our phones, tablets, and computers.
It is very heavy on dialogue. I am a narrative person and am not overly keen on lots of dialogue, mainly because I struggle to write it myself, but this has got to be at least 75% dialogue, and that did get a bit sluggish - but that is a personal thing because I know some people love reading dialogue.
I believe Ben is a poet and I can definitely feel that in this book, there is an almost lyrical, poetical nature to the writing.
I was worried it would be too literary for me, a bit up itself, if that makes sense, and I'm not generally excited about literary novels, but this isn't. Yes it is literary and it is aware of itself, but it doesn't feel pompous or that it's talking down to the reader.
It is split into three sections and they all are set around a different hotel, but they're all linked to this main story, and I thought in the absence of smaller chapters, I feel it worked well to tell this particular story.
This has definitely piqued my interest, and whilst I'm not the biggest poetry fan, it has definitely got me interested to read some of his other work.
This is not the kind of book I would normally choose, and I haven't read any of Ben's previous work, and so I was going into this blind.
There are some looooooooooooong sentences which took some getting used to.
There's not much in the way of plot, and very little character development to be honest, and yet somehow it isn't dull. I think that's partly to do with the short page length, anything too much longer and the lack of substance might have made it drag. And because of the short page count, it zoomed by and I read it in a couple of hours.
It is fascinating, a real insight into humanity and what we hear when we're actually listening. It looks at what we're missing because we live our lives through screens, we think we can't survive without our phones, tablets, and computers.
It is very heavy on dialogue. I am a narrative person and am not overly keen on lots of dialogue, mainly because I struggle to write it myself, but this has got to be at least 75% dialogue, and that did get a bit sluggish - but that is a personal thing because I know some people love reading dialogue.
I believe Ben is a poet and I can definitely feel that in this book, there is an almost lyrical, poetical nature to the writing.
I was worried it would be too literary for me, a bit up itself, if that makes sense, and I'm not generally excited about literary novels, but this isn't. Yes it is literary and it is aware of itself, but it doesn't feel pompous or that it's talking down to the reader.
It is split into three sections and they all are set around a different hotel, but they're all linked to this main story, and I thought in the absence of smaller chapters, I feel it worked well to tell this particular story.
This has definitely piqued my interest, and whilst I'm not the biggest poetry fan, it has definitely got me interested to read some of his other work.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Ben Lerner embodies everything that is wrong with modern literature; a privileged intellectual with nothing of substance to say. Our over-dependence on technology has been well covered by now, and Lerner has nothing new to add to the subject. In fact, it is hard to really see what, if anything, he has to say in this book. It feels like he threw a few concepts onto a page, toyed with them a bit, and decided to leave them vague and inconclusive in order to seem clever, making what it actually a creative laziness. The first two parts of this story at least have some cohesion, and feel like they are building towards something, but the final part - mostly centred around a child’s eating disorder - feels like a reworked short story clumsily crammed into the narrative, and by the end I felt that the whole journey of the novel had been a complete waste of time. At the end of it all, this is simply a bad idea terribly executed.
December 6, 2025
I much preferred this to Leaving the Atocha Station, which I read this time last year and which felt bleak - reminding me too closely of the worst kinds of men in society. The central male characters in this novel had much more complexity, or more sympathetic traits and flaws, which made it more of a compelling read.
I loved the section in the museum with the glass flowers and the character of Thomas's poetic register. I also appreciated the way the novel handled modern technology and how it shapes our experience of the world. It reminded me of a Guardian long-read James Bridle wrote about Pepper pig and unboxing videos — genuinely terrifying stuff. I'm more of a fan of Lerner's poetry and not convinced that this fully holds up as an entirely successful novel but I think there are moments of brilliance.
I loved the section in the museum with the glass flowers and the character of Thomas's poetic register. I also appreciated the way the novel handled modern technology and how it shapes our experience of the world. It reminded me of a Guardian long-read James Bridle wrote about Pepper pig and unboxing videos — genuinely terrifying stuff. I'm more of a fan of Lerner's poetry and not convinced that this fully holds up as an entirely successful novel but I think there are moments of brilliance.
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