Gone with the Mind

by Mark Leyner

Dizzyingly brilliant, raucously funny, and painfully honest, GONE WITH THE MIND is the story of Mark Leyner's life, told as only Mark Leyner can tell it. In this utterly unconventional novel-or is it a memoir?-Leyner gives a reading in the food court of a New Jersey shopping mall. The "audience" consists of Mark's mother and some stray Panda Express employees, who ask a handful of questions. The action takes place entirely at the food court, but the territory covered in these pages has no bounds.

A joyride of autobiography, cultural critique, DIY philosophy, biopolitics, video games, demagoguery, and the most intimate confessions, GONE WITH THE MIND is both a soulful reckoning with mortality and the tender story of the relationship between a complicated mother and an even more complicated son.

At once nostalgic and acidic, deeply humane and completely surreal, GONE WITH THE MIND is a work of pure, hilarious genius.

"The blazingly inventive fictional autobiography of Mark Leyner, one of America's "rare, true original voices" (Gary Shteyngart).

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Novels, Literary Fiction, Comedy, Audiobook, Adult

250 pages, Hardcover

First published March 8, 2016

About the author

Mark Leyner is an American postmodernist author known for his surreal, high-energy prose, absurd humor, and densely layered narratives. A graduate of Brandeis University and the University of Colorado, Leyner studied under postmodernist Steve Katz and launched his literary career with the short story collection I Smell Esther Williams (1983). He gained a cult following with My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist (1990) and Et Tu, Babe (1992), and continued to experiment with metafiction in novels like The Tetherballs of Bougainville and The Sugar Frosted Nutsack. His writing is characterized by sprawling imagery, extravagant vocabulary, and a wild mix of pop culture, medicine, and satire. Leyner’s nonfiction collaborations with Dr. Billy Goldberg, including Why Do Men Have Nipples?, became bestsellers that blended comedy and real medical facts. He has also worked as a columnist for Esquire and George, written for MTV’s Liquid Television, and co-authored the screenplay for War, Inc.. A lifelong innovator, Leyner has remained a singular voice in American fiction. His more recent books include Gone with the Mind, Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit, and the 2024 retrospective A Shimmering, Serrated Monster!: The Mark Leyner Reader. He lives in New Jersey and continues to influence readers and writers with his singular, genre-defying style.

Reviews

[Lee Klein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Right book, right time, without a doubt. I've been experiencing a crisis of faith lately, muddling through a prolonged reading slump really only momentarily broken by KOKMS5. Getting 100 pages into long burly novels and bailing on them or "putting them aside." And then along comes the latest Mark Leyner. Always a treat. But this one surprised me how well it wiped the cobwebs from my eyes. The language is as high-def and as flowing as always, a mix of syrupy Percy Bysshe Shelley prosody, pharmaceutical advertisement copy, the thorniest literary theory hairballs, and viruses of verbosity contracted from the lowest rungs of the televised ladder or something, right? What makes this one different is two instances of what Mark Leyner would never call "emotionality." The first comes in the introduction to Mark's reading for a nonfiction series held at an empty food court in a mall, essentially a transcript of a spiel by Mark's mom about her pregnancies and Mark's early life. The first moment of emotionality involves Mark's younger sister's death soon after birth. It's such an unexpected thirty pages at first, presented in Mark's mom's voice, talking about Jersey City of the '50s, and then the tragedy of the baby girl's death thanks to an incompetent obstetrician. I looked ahead maybe 15 pages into the book, worried that the whole thing would be this straightforward voicey transcript (of note: I noted a vestigial POV typo ["your room" instead of "Mark's room"] that wasn't converted from the original second person -- mother speaking to son, using "you" instead of "Mark" and "Mark's" -- at the top of page 32, tweeted a question about it to Mr. Leyner, who confirmed that "your room" was exactly that, not an intentional error intended to undermine nonfictional authority [I just revised this and clicked the blue flying bird so it'll be tweeted, hoping that Mr. Leyner's experience of re-reading this becomes an ever-reflecting mirror, like in a dentist's office (I think that's the simile he uses in the book) or a fitting room in the Bloomingdale's of the Short Hills Mall, which includes a semi-nice restaurant at which my mother and I sometimes lunched when there (rarely), the way Mark and his mother lunched at a mall restaurant]). The second instance of real emotionality involves Mark's recovery from recent prostate cancer surgery -- his wife Mercedes (a presence through many of his books) makes bland food for him and holds his hand as he's in a bathrobe, catheterized, etc. Reviews of this, as with every other one of his books, probably talk about the audacity, the extreme unpredictability on micro- and macro-levels, but for the first time in a Leyner book this reader felt something other than amusement (dozens of legit LOLs), a sort of awe at the author's refinement and therefore total accessibility of his always totally unique approach, a general desire to write, re-read all of his books, and get back to the sort of thing that got me interested in reading contemporary literature in the first place. DFW, Leyner, DeLillo, the early George Saunders stuff. There's a sense of freedom in the writing, a benevolent semi-juvenile fuck it all-ness, just an energy that, well, energizes me and that makes consumption of so-called sophisticated literature seem baffling, boring, a waste of life on earth. What sets this one apart, though, is the sadness, the emotion, which comes off as absolutely real and sincere, roughly cut and wrapped in the butcher paper of infinite insane ironic associative digression. Also a unique, um, exploration of mother/son stuff, with just enough Oedipalizing to keep it interesting/icky. This one also toys with autobiography and non-fiction -- it's ultimately an autobiographical fiction, really, worth comparing (um, contrasting, more so) with KOK, Ferrante, and friends. Anyway, so much more I could say about this -- but instead might start reading it again. Five stars for me -- albeit possibly some star inflation occurred due to its impact on current mood/ideation regarding writing and reading in general.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

This is Mark Leyner's best book. --Sam Lipsyte

No it's not. At least not if you subtract a bias toward the somewhat more or less conventional, which this is in relation to other Wild Ride Leyners. But don't be surprised by the restrained first chapter, which belongs to Leyner's mother, because the next chapter brings Leyner out swinging with Big Words, which Big Words unfortunately don't quite dominate like they have in other Leyners.

So, yes, there is plenty of Mother-Son action and plenty of that Oedipus stuff. How can there not be?

But there's also robotic prostate surgery. A true Men's Issue.

And the setting is something you all can relate to, the shopping mall food court. Honestly though, I couldn't quite relate like you guys might ; it's been perhaps a dozen years since last I ate at one of these things. But you know, it really was kind of like one of those flashmobs that start performing Ludwig's Ninth in front of the Sbarro.

And I do confess, there were times which left me rollingonthefuckingfloorlaughingmyassoff.

And like most stuff you buy at the mall, caveat emptor ; this is an afternoon's worth of reading, no more, and priced at $25US. Which makes The Dying Grass look like a true bargain.



p.s. DFW, eat your satanic heart=out!! etc.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost forgot how much I love Leyner and how fun he is to read. This one is as meta as Et Tu, Babe, but is sort of attitudely the opposite. Here we have Mark still living life as an accomplished writer but finds him reading to virtually no one at a mall food court reading series. Refreshingly ridiculous and without any real plot per se, Gone With the Mind is a wildly unpredictable catalog of digressions centered in a soft pillow of mother-son love (Mark's mom is featured prominently as his ride to the reading and the lone audience member--if you don't count the Panda Express and Sbarro employees taking their break). A thread of stories about surviving prostate cancer give some nice weight to the overall reading experience and the language is as smart and amped up as you'd expect from Mark's genius brain. Seriously--this book is just such a riot (though I think Tetherballs of Bougainville is still my all-time fave Leyner).
Funny story: The other night, I saw Michael Chabon at Powell's (for his wife's reading) and we were talking about what we were reading and I asked him if he ever read any Leyner and he said he read My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist, but had a hard time reading it because it was "too funny." He said Leyner is hard to read because "it makes my stomach hurt to laugh so much."
I also want to say this about Gone With the Mind: In a world with so much bad shit going down and opening your browser leaves you drained from all the shocking, horrible news, this book was a great escape for me, and it also inspired me as a currently-struggling writer. Mark Leyner--your writing brings me joy.

[David Katzman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mark Leyner is a fascinating experimentalist. In his early writing, I thought of him as a comic absurdist, such as in his amazing short stories in My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist. And there is still some of that lingering in his work, there are moments of humor no doubt, but now they are embedded within a larger, weirder context that is pushing the boundaries of meaning in fiction.

Gone with the Mind reminded me in some ways of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Both novels purport to be about to present to you the full autobiography or memoirs of the main character (in this case, it's "Mark Leyner") and in both cases, the book never gets to where it's going. Tristram never actually tells us about his life. "Mark" is about to read from his "non-fiction" autobiography, Gone with the Mind, but instead he rambles digressively about primarily insignificant aspects of his fictional life. I say fictional, because most seem ridiculous and constructed nonsense rather than actual aspects of his life. Some, perhaps, may be real, I can't know but most digressions are radically insane and bizarre, such as his obsession with a beloved writing assistant who he conjured out of cracks in the tile of the bathroom floor as he was taking a crap.

The novel begins with a long run-on story by his fictional mother that was pretty honestly amazing because it sounded hella like my own mother. I mean, legit old school Jew from New York City who JUST. WON'T. STOP. TALKING. And mostly about meaningless details. Well, that and bodily failure and relatives or friends that you have never met. It was amazingly believable in style.

At times, Gone with the Mind is alienating. As in Sugar Frosted Nutsack, I think intentionally so. Such as the incredibly awkward Oedipal implications in the Leyner character's relationship with his mother. And while it was amusing to have the faux reading, which comprises the entire story, take place in a deserted mall food court, I found the brief interactions with the fast-food employees ignoring him to be rather unnatural. Everything is contrived here and that's part of the point. The story of our self is a contrived one. We lie to ourselves as much as we lie to others. Or are simply oblivious. As a story of autobiography gone wrong, Gone with the Mind is quite a treat. Certainly not as humorous as his earliest work, but he has other intentions these days, such as seeing how far he can explore pushing the boundaries of fiction.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There's nothing more dispiriting for a writer than to have traveled hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles to give a reading, and then find him- or herself facing rows of empty seats," declares Muriel Leyner, the author's mother, on the opening page of Mark Leyner's goofy and profound fourth novel, "Gone with the Mind." This fictional autobiography sees Leyner continuing to walk the comic, meta-fictional path he initially set out on in 1992 with his debut novel, "E Tu, Babe," and it takes this common writerly nightmare as its premise.

Leyner's mother is the "coordinating director of the Nonfiction at the Food Court Reading Series" at "the Woodcreek Plaza Mall," introducing her son, and only a couple of Panda Express and Sbarro employees provide anything like what might be considered a crowd. Even they are "just taking a break" and "definitely not here for the reading" as they say when Leyner's mom asks them.

It's hard to imagine the real Mark Leyner having to contend with this kind of humiliating disinterest. In their "Most Anticipated: The Great 2016 Book Preview" feature earlier this year, the literary site The Millions described him as "one of the postmodern darlings of the 1990s," pointing out that "you may remember him sitting around the table with Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace for the legendary Charlie Rose segment."

Although it's been four years since Mark Leyner released his last novel, "The Sugar Frosted Nutsack," and prior to that, he hadn't released a novel since 1998's "The Tetherballs of Bougainville," it's not as though he has vanished from the public eye. His writing appeared regularly in GQ and The New Yorker, he co-wrote the 2008 John Cusack movie "War, Inc.," and throughout the mid-to-late 2000s, he and Dr. Billy Goldberg, released a series of three medical/humor advice books, including 2005's best-selling "Why Do Men Have Nipples: Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini."

Yet as limited as its setup may sound, this latest book is formally fascinating and wide-ranging in the subjects it pulls in in spite (or because) of its extremely narrow setting. Every bit as self-referential and genre-bending as his previous fiction, the book opens with a fairly harrowing monologue by Muriel that's so theatrical and stage-able that you can easily imagine it performed. Ostensibly, she's introducing her son, who's there to read from his memoir, but really, her speech is about her various pregnancy and childbirth experiences, as well as her encounters with anti-Semitism in and around Jersey City in the middle of the 20th century.

It's page 43 by the time Mark begins "Part II," "Reading." Except the thing is that he never actually begins to read. First, he describes at length the preposterously elaborate creation of "Gone with the Mind," which was initially slated to be "an autobiography in the form of a first-person shooter game that ends with unraveling the zygote in your mother's uterus," a process in which he was aided by a character known only as "the Imaginary Intern." From there Leyner treats the reader to an absurdly digressive monologue that blends such personal anecdotes as what he wore to his bar mitzvah with confessions of his armpit fetish with meditations on olfactory art.



Along the way, Mark pauses to notice that the food court workers are "paying absolutely no attention to anything" he's saying, but that does not stop him from continuing his effusive — and allusive — prelude, referring to a multitude of high and low cultural touchstones, including but far from limited to Helen Keller, Bobby Flay, Heraclitus, Jenna Jameson, Lifetime movies, the song "Call Your Girlfriend" by Robyn, "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "King Lear," TED talks, Ted Bundy, Ted Kaczynski, Ted Hughes and Ted Berrigan.

By the end, including Parts III (a Q&A) and IV (the adjournment) not much has happened, of course, but that's the point. Packed with — as Mark puts it earlier in his non-reading reading — "cosmic apercus and trippy metaphysical speculation," "Gone with the Mind" is all strained anticipation and endlessly prolonged prologue. Leyner delivers an exercise in deferred gratification that is itself immensely entertaining and surprisingly gratifying.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is 250 pages of sheer silliness; I think I would classify it as YA for that reason. 13-year-olds could do worse than read this. The various obscenities and scatologies will be educational.

There was however one anecdote which made me laugh. The narrator is waiting tables at a restaurant in Jersey City in the 80s when a man with a speech impediment (and his wife) show up. He orders a "Wob Woy, vewy dwy, a wum and Coke for my wife, the pwime wib, vewy ware, and the bwoiled scrod...and would it be possible for my wife to have that with the wice instead of Fwench fwies?" He comes in once a week and eventually gets in a conversation about what the narrator wants to do; he wants to become a writer someday. The man says that he and his wife love to "wead." His favorite writers are "Joseph Conwad, Waymond Chandler, and especially Gwaham Gweene." "No Melville, no Poe, no Hemingway," thinks the waiter/narrator. As he heads away from the table, the man adds, "I also love music." What kind of music? "I love the Wamones, Woxy Music,....and especially....Guns N' Woses."

[Derrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Leyner's short story collection, Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog in 2019, and having the funniest reading experience I had had up to that point, I knew I would read through the rest of his fiction in 2020. My expectations were exceeded and many laughs were had. Mark has shown great range throughout his career, from the extreme absurd and experimental nature of My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist through the collections of humorous, pop short fiction, all the way to the novel, Gone With the Mind, that blends all the best parts of Leyner's writing into one project, whilst including a new dash of sentimentality.

For many people, Leyner gets left behind and passed up on their tbr lists, with peers like Franzen and DFW, it is easy to see why, in a way. These authors are writing about addiction, familial relations, death, etc, in the form of big erudite books, and Leyner is....funny. In an ironic way, I only bring up this comparison to say that this comparison should not even be made. Leyner never attempted to do what DFW was doing (and vice versa), so any comparison would thus be preferential about what kind of novel one wants to read.

Leyner attempts to delight sentence-to-sentence, and for me he does that with this novel. He is the funniest writer alive, and I really do not think any one else is close. I am now eagerly awaiting his next novel, The Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit, which is set to release next month.

[M. Sarki · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/1455746...

This was my first exposure to Mark Leyner. His novel concept was refreshing, and the opening chapter with his mom making the l-o-n-g and digressing introduction for Leyner's reading at the mall is priceless.The only novel I have read even remotely similar to this one is My Romance by Gordon Lish. But this piece of work goes further into the realm of the bizarre and unworldly genius. Though mothers and sons will appreciate the maternal connection here, there are far too many references to baseball, especially dating back to the time of Mickey Mantle and the New York Yankees of the sixties. Other sports, like tennis, rear their heads as well. And perhaps there are more mother-son relationships that share a love of sports than I am aware of, but I think not. Therefore, the book will obviously lose some readers who harbor an aversion to all things sports-related. But certainly, that matters little to Leyner or his fans, and is likely a better opportunity for general exclusivity: a sort of club for extremely intelligent people who know big words and can recite, with accuracy, sports nostalgia.

[H Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the early 90s, Leyner fractured and then reassembled fiction in his own image through My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist, Et Tu, Babe, and The Tetherballs of Bougainville. A Hollywood and pop-medical non-fiction hiatus lasted until 2012, when The Sugar Frosted Nutsack refracted mythology and the oral tradition through the prism of the internet and celebrity obsession.

Now, with Gone With The Mind, Leyner tackles the autobiography. And it’s stunning.

Reading a Mark Leyner novel is a singular experience - one that tends to polarise, if my experience is anything to go by – but his writing hits my pleasure centres more reliably than any other author. This new book dazzles with its language, structure and fizzing, exploding ideas, but also smuggles in a depth of feeling that is palpable.

I loved it.

[Oriana]

Mark Leyner!! Man oh man, I love this nutball fella, how exciting that he has a new book coming, and that it sounds bizarrely marvelous. Here's from the Millions' Great 2016 Book Preview:

Leyner was one of the postmodern darlings of the 1990s (or you may remember him sitting around the table with Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace for the legendary Charlie Rose segment). After spending almost the last decade on non-fiction and movie projects, he’s back with a new novel in which the fictional Mark Leyner reads from his autobiography at a reading set up by his mother at a New Jersey mall’s food court. Mark, his mother, and a few Panda Express employees share an evening that is absurd and profound — basically Leyneresque.

[Arthur Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason, I read this one out of order with The Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit (a.k.a. Daughter: Waiting for Her Drunk Father to Return from the Men's Room), which is funny, because this book could've been called Gone With the Mind (a.k.a. Mother: Watching Her Son Stand on a Table and Talk Like Some Fucking Nut Job). There's a similar family narrative device employed in both books, and while both Daughter and Mother use it to overall good effect, the former seemed to stick the ending better for my tastes, whereas the latter kind of peters out a bit in comparison. Either way, Leyner's deep and abiding love for each of these special ladies comes through loud and clear in both books, which is really quite a thing to behold in his own inimitable treatment of the subject matter.

[Chaitra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have no idea what I read, but whatever it was was entertaining. I mean, I have longed for this and I didn't even know: an author acknowledging that the reader was a star, because they (the reader) just read the entirety of this book. That's six or seven hours of their life they will never get back. Yes please.

To summarize, this is a novel that comprises of a reading at a food court in New Jersey, on a cold as hell stormy day when no one shows up. His only audience are a Panda Express worker and an Sbarro worker, both on a break and definitely not for the reading. The reading itself is supposed to be from Mark's book, also called Gone with the Mind, which is supposed to be in the form of a first person shooter game where every incident of his life is touched upon until he becomes a zygote and there's a flying balcony from which he's rescued by Mussolini. I think. It doesn't matter, because this never actually gets read from. Instead Mark's mom introduces him in a ridiculously long-winded fashion that stops just short of his fifth year (or so), and then Mark rambles on about things like his collaborator - the Imaginary Intern - who he imagined up from the cracks of his bathroom tiles, and who has just left, various incidents that didn't get into the book, some references for whatever it is he's supposed to read, and a Q and A that is between Mom and son, which mostly consists of wondering if a particular crack in a bathroom tile looks like the Intern.

It was original, to say the least (since I'm not a fan of stand-up comedy, and rarely watch). It was also funny, and I remember most of what was in the book (in the wrong order maybe), which is rare for me when a book is mostly a monologue. I did wonder, the Panda Express and Sbarro workers took one long-ass break.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm trying to figure out if this could be categorized as high-brow-low-brow a la McSweeneys' publications. It has a similar feel (full disclosure: I like McSweeneys' publications so this is not a bad thing per se) but it doesn't have quite the same Dave-Eggers-MFA-clique vocabulary or pretension. It's quirky as hell and definitely goofy but not in an overbearing or unrelenting way. It just kinda works. I'm always happy to read books that just kinda work.

This is my first Leyner book, but I can't imagine it's my last. I've been disappointed with a number of books that I've read over the past few months so this one was a breath of fresh air. It's smart, it's hilarious, it's complete bullshit, and it's short. Can't beat that with a stick.

Fair warning: you'll probably need a dictionary close by to look up some of Leyner's words. I know I did.

I got this book as a Goodreads Giveaway in exchange for an honest review. I would honestly love to spend a day just wandering around, caramelizing random things with a creme brulee torch.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been hoping for another Leyner to come along for a while now. Cerebral, humorous, fun, and possibly non-existent, this one doesn't disappoint. I don't think it's my favorite Leyner, but I do like it.

[Medicinefckdream]

this was way better and more "mature" imo than his other books and it had a nice part about how the author has the strongest urinary sphincter in the world and that after the nuclear apocalypse only cockroaches and this guys urinary sphincter muscles will be left

[David Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoroughgoing tragicomic masterpiece. Leyner is surely one of the most unique writers who ever lived.

[Seth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the special privilege of listening to this book about Mark Leyner giving a reading in a mall food court to a tiny, annoyed, and bewildered audience after having once been in attendance while Mark Leyner gave a reading to a tiny, annoyed, and bewildered audience. Except for me -- I laughed in big, annoying brays while everyone else scowled at their unmet expectations, until Leyner eventually just focused on reading to me. This book is just as funny as the one he'd written back then, even more so because he read to me again, this time along with his very own mother. Those two supremely real voices tear through the wrapper of absurdity to reveal that its hiding true honesty and sweetness.

[Joe Kraus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have three completely different (and favorable) reactions to this bizarre and funny book.

1) I don’t think I’m the only one who’s irritated by a tendency in some contemporary post-modern work to deal with what I like to call “the disease of the self.” That is, we get major works that confront self-ness in ways that almost put Proust to shame. There’s a lot to enjoy in Karl-Ove Knausgaard, for instance, and the ambition in David Foster Wallace is impressive, but after a while, I’m frustrated by the unspoken premise: “If you pay attention to me in all my microscopic contradictions and discomforts, you’ll be more aware of your own hypocrisies and inconsistencies. Dive with me into the depths of my self, and you’ll get insight into all of us.” For all its brilliance, I can’t help seeing it as the equivalent of literary selfies.

The trouble with that, I can’t help feeling, is that, for all that we do have in common, we are also very different. I tend to admire fiction that puts our differences into conversation. In fact, that’s how my father and the great critic Mikhail Bakhtin define it: the collision between two or more perspectives through the specific narrative of the story. I’m not arguing for a glib superficiality; stories about multiple perspectives need to excavate those perspectives as full and meaningful selves. And I’m not rejecting the idea that great literature can be obsessed with the self – think of a lot of what Joyce did. Instead, I’m just saying that, for some of the literature earning praise in our moment, there’s too much emphasis on the individual self of the writer.

In that context, Mark Leyner is absolutely brilliant. This weird and wonderful book parodies disease-of-the-self narratives by presenting us with someone who writes a post-modern autobiography – complete with excerpts of various personality inventories and testimony from his mother – with the presumed expectation that others will want to read it. Instead, when he appears at the local mall food court for his part in the “Nonfiction at the Food Court Reading Series,” no one comes. Or, rather, two employees on their break sit at tables in the back and serve as reluctant listeners.

And yet, despite no one’s caring, Leyner (putting himself forward as his own character) keeps on reading. Or, without quite reading, he gives a five or six hour prologue to the work he tells us he’ll read. No one sits waiting for this work, yet it consumes his every bit of energy and creativity. In the loneliness of writing the book, he’s invented an “imaginary intern,” an invisible friend who helps him conceive of and research the autobiography – and who himself eventually tires of the project and leaves Mark entirely alone.

If all that sounds like an easy joke, Leyner is brilliant enough to pull it off. He twists and turns his narrative so often, and he brings new and bizarre lines of inquiry in so skillfully, that the concept never gets old. The spectacle of Mark’s navel-gazing is both pitiful and inspiring. This brilliant, neurotic, clever and (ultimately) humane thinker, never gets old. He really is fascinating, and the book leaves that irony twisting: our journey into his needy self is both a glimpse at someone craving attention and a reminder that none of us has the attention to give to another. It’s a parody of one postmodern impulse, and, in its humanizing of the need for one man’s wanting to be seen, it really does invite the rest of us into a fresh new conversation.

2) The trope of the Jewish mother as ‘smother has been done. Whether you locate its roots in Philip Roth, Bruce Jay Friedman, or Woody Allen, you have to recognize it as a cliché: the Jewish mother can see no wrong in her little boy and, as a consequence, she’s responsible for everything that’s gone wrong with him. Far less skilled writers have kept it going, and we’re left with awful examples of it in, say, Howard Wolowitz’s mother in The Big Bang Theory, or Evelyn Harper of Two and a Half Men (who, not Jewish, is written by the Jewish Chuck Lorre).

Here, though, Leyner, revisits that trope. Instead of demonizing his mother, he explores her sacrifices on his behalf. He finds her his best friend and, slowly but beautifully, his best critic. They may have impeded each other throughout their lives, each keeping the other from developing in other independent ways, but they have also built something together.

In what I think of as the climax of the book, the two of them find themselves in a bathroom, looking for faces in the cracks on the floor. She wants to see his imaginary intern, wants to enter that fully into his imagination, but she can’t. Or he won’t let her. Either way, the two genuinely embrace each other, and he discovers that his voice is largely hers; he discovers (as he’s talked of in his imaginary video game) that his ideal is to be united with her, but to be united in his own, full self. He doesn’t want to erase his life, and he doesn’t blame her for his failings. He just flat out loves her. And that’s a refreshing take on a now too easy cliché.

3) Or, I can say flat out that this is one of the funniest books I’ve read in ages. Forget context if you want: this book never goes more than a handful of pages without offering something profoundly funny, without making you laugh out loud. It’s a stand-up routine so smart, so well-conceived, that you could probably pick a random page and find yourself fully entertained.

Leyner knows what he’s doing, and it’s absolutely worth checking out.

[Nate Dern · Rating 5 out of 5]

First time reading Leyner.

Truly haven’t read anything like this before. I want to read more of him. Large passages didn’t do anything for me, but then certain sections would just be completely brilliant or hilarious, and I’d re-read them a few times, leading me to believe there was probably something going on in the sections that didn’t do anything for me that I just didn’t get. Recommended!

[Barondestructo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like listening to a fitfully amusing friend's extended drunken ramblings.

[Taylor Church · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always appreciate good reviews on books I am interested in delving into, so I find it only fair and right to let the world know what I think about a book. Many books I cannot recall how I stumbled into their pages, but will forever be grateful for the stroke of serendipity. So if a descriptive sentence can steer a potential reader towards a tome that moves them at a time that they need to be so moved, then all will have been worthwhile.

I recently finished a book that was an absolute assault on the mind. It forced me to re-read lines, re-read whole pages, and look up words as if I was preparing a dissertation paper on a subject I knew nothing about. It was a book that was confusing and hard and annoying, but all the while it kept me curious and deeply interested. The book is called Gone with the Mind. The author’s name is Mark Leyner. I will explain more about the plot and theme of the book in a minute. First, how did I even come to know Mark Leyner exists? Honestly, I saw him on an interview with Charlie Rose, circa 1996. He seemed like a poorly dressed man who took himself way too seriously and wanted nothing more than for people to know how widely intelligent he was. Alas, he was there on the show being compared to one of my all-time favorite authors, David Foster Wallace. Both were labeled post-modernists. Both were known for their extremely large vocabularies. And both were known for writing difficult, hilarious, and wildly non-linear novels. So I thought, what the hell? I read up about Mr. Leyner and found the plot summaries of his books to be new and intriguing, and maybe even Wallace-esque. So, instead of reading his first book or his most famous opus I decided to read his recently released book with vague allusions to Gone with the Wind in the title.

I am not sure I followed this pseudo-autobiography as well as I would have liked to, but I know what I gathered and soaked up was lovely and viscerally enjoyable. The book has multiple narrators and basically is one intense and tangential monologue of a narcissistic paranoid author with mommy issues. But it isn’t some poorly veiled look into one man’s troubled and hyper-dramatized life, it’s a creative work of metafictionalized genius. Leyner meanders, jumps, and soars through the past, through his mind, and through the possibilities of life. If you allow the story, which is unusual and often frustratingly unclear, touch you you will find how much you can relate and how much life is wonderfully disconnected and boggled.

I’m sure many will find it uncouth or pedantic, but I found Gone with the Mind to be nothing short of a bizarre masterpiece.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first encountered Mark Leyner’s writing on the publication of My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist, a highly experimental work that blew my mind with its twisting of form, pop cultural omniscience, and extreme fetishism. His work since then has seen several heights, from the more novelistic Et Tu, Babe and The Tetherballs of Bougainville, to his underappreciated masterpiece, the sui generis send-up of the epic, The Sugar Frosted Nutsack.

Gone with the Mind is a semi-autobiographical work in which Leyner and his mother orate bits of their life stories in a shopping mall food court. The first forty pages contain some of his most mainstream work, yet some of his best -- a simple yet engrossing narration of his mother’s struggles with pregnancy, misogyny, and trauma in 1950’s America. The book then shifts into more standard Leyner mode as Leyner himself narrates a (presumably semi-fictional) self-referential psychosexual exploration of fragments of his life. Finally, it finds a balance between the two modes in its telling of Leyner's experience with prostate cancer surgery, leading to a moment of wonderful epiphany.

I’ve long been a fan of Leyner’s jokey and verbose style that simultaneously skewers and delights in pop culture. But here, it’s the more sedate early and late parts of the book that shine brightest. While I found the central narration less interesting, those sections add something new and affecting to his oeuvre of wild experimentalism.

[Jeremy Hornik · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a small group of writers that I love who are just smart, and not afraid to use language in a way that keeps them from becoming popular. Too strange, too disrespectful, too alienating, too much ugliness, too many big words, tone shifts crazily, jokes too esoteric...

At the center of all these things is the problem that the reader needs to WORK to keep up with them before you can even decide if you like them or not.

Leyner is that guy. I love him. Basically, he's the anti-Franzen. Odds are you won't get through it. If you do, you may not figure out why I do. But for a few people who read this, you're going to feel like you've leveled up.

His most approachable novel, about his relationship with his mother. What is true and what is false is not easy to sort out, because of the dazzle of the language (deliberately done to obfuscate while techically 'truthful') and because the absurdity of his humor and the absurdity of his life meld almost perfectly here.

Sections worth finding even if you aren't going to read the whole thing: the section on the eroticism of women's armpits, the poetry writing class at Brandeis, the description of the Imaginary Intern, and the complete lack of interest by the only other people at the reading, two food court employees who are on their phones and resisting all attempts to be part of the novel-reading.

[Hayley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really fucking weird.

Missing left parentheses for the right parentheses on page 59.

Agonizingly cringe-y throughout. Really encapsulated the older-lady-speaking-in-run-on-tangents voice. The second-hand embarrassment/disgust at how the main character was living his life overtook me mid-way through the book and I had to set it down for a while.

[Smiley III · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's almost-impossible to describe this book — like The Sugar Frosted Nutsack . 'Cept it's like that book, crossed with Et Tu, Babe .

There. I'm done.

[Tom Doig · Rating 5 out of 5]

YES.

In this turgid, banal age of "tell-some" memoirs and unadventurous middle-class middlebrow realism, just, YES.

Read this book, people.

[Brian Grover · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a trip. The premise: Mark Leyner is doing a reading from his autobiography at a New Jersey mall food court, his only audience being his mother (who gives an expansive introduction), and a couple of Panda Express workers on their break. Leyner never gets around to the actual reading though, instead choosing to speak extemporaneously about his life.

This guy is brilliant, and if this isn't truly an autobiography, there's no doubt the author's thoughts and personality shine through constantly. I think tone is important here, and to clarify, Leyner (the character) isn't a lunatic, or a wisecracking asshole, he's got a bleak but gentle outlook that Leyner (the author) works to excellent comic effect. To wit, Leyner (the character)'s first sentence - "Before I start, I'd like to say: Fuck everyone who said I was too paradoxical a hybrid of arrogant narcissism and vulnerable naivete to succeed in life (even though they were right)."

The book is nuts, all over the place, and he lost me at times without a doubt. But there are also multiple laugh-out-loud passages, and one moment in particular that got me teary-eyed out of absolutely nowhere. I can't quite bump this to four star status, because it's inconsistent, but I definitely want to read another of Mark Leyner's books in 2017.

[Jeff Lewonczyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leyner's gonzo, reference-packed, snarkier-than-thou, mile-a-minute prose is not for everyone, but I've never been able to get enough of it. It can easily be dismissed as literary junk food - or worse, literary speed bought from a sketchy guy behind a Garden State Parkway rest stop - but I've always found it way more than that - the kind of surreal, relentless, overbearing satire that accurately reflects the culture that spawned it.

It took me a while to get around to it, but this one provides a wonderful new evolution in Leyner's voice. Whereas before he took on the persona of an all-knowing, narcissistic alpha male, the equation has shifted - he's aging, he's growing vulnerable, and he's simultaneously embracing and in denial about his decline. The premise here is that he's delivering his autobiography as a "reading" in the food court of a New Jersey mall during an apocalyptic rainstorm, to an audience of two inattentive mall employees and his mom. With surprising tenderness, he actually opens the book in his mom's voice, demonstrating a new sense of range and sensitivity. Rest assured, the jokes and insanity are still there, but they're more grounded than they've ever been. The result is another entirely uncategorizable but thoroughly enjoyable stint in the mind of a very strange - and suddenly very human - man.

[St Fu · Rating 5 out of 5]

The literary agent who read the manuscript of the novel I wrote more than ten years ago complained of having to spend all that time in that one character's head. I thought of him when reading this and imagined he'd have the same criticism of GWTM. I can now say I consider that feature a plus. Back then, I lacked an imaginary intern to bolster my self-esteem and promptly gave up writing fiction. Well not that promptly, but I also asked a family member (not my mother) who, coincidentally, along with Mark Leyner, was involved in starting the Fiction Collective to read it and he refused because it was too long.

But you don't want to read a review which is all about me, do you? I guess all of my reviews are really about me when you come down to it. If only I could leave my mind behind, but wherever I go, to paraphrase what Buckaroo Banzai says in that movie, there I am. GWTM claims to pursue a similar goal, claiming to achieve it at the end only by coming (sexual reference intended) to understand that what the author fears the most is what he wants the most.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here's a thing about Mark Leyner and his books, which are becoming increasing idiosyncratic even as his plotting becomes more focused and his skills more honed. The Venn diagram of readers that enjoy the slightly transgressive tales-told-out-of-school story-telling of David Sedaris, as well as the metafictional pyrotechnics of David Foster Wallace at his most precious, and the whimsy of somebody like Terry Gilliam, is vanishingly small, one suspects.

That said, if one is there for it, then Leyner nails it.

Parts are laugh-out-loud funny, and it is weirdly propulsive for such a strange "autobiographical" project that is almost the opposite of a traditional biography in that it lets you know many things about the mind of the author, but very little about what he has actually done.

"Brilliant, but not for everyone." undersells both sides of that sentence.