The Topeka School

Last updated
The Topeka School
The Topeka School (Lerner novel).png
First edition cover
Author Ben Lerner
Audio read byPeter Berkrot [1]
Nancy Linari [1]
Tristan Wright [1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre Bildungsroman
Set in Topeka, Kansas in the 1990s
Publisher FSG Originals
Publication date
October 1, 2019
Media typePrint (Hardcover)
Pages304
ISBN 978-0-374-27778-9
OCLC 1080555801
813/.6
LC Class PS3612.E68 T63 2019

The Topeka School is a 2019 novel by the American novelist and poet Ben Lerner about a high school debate champion from Topeka, Kansas in the 1990s. The book is considered both a bildungsroman and a work of autofiction, as the narrative incorporates many details from Lerner's own life. [2] The novel was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. [3]

Contents

Background

As in Lerner's previous novels, the narrative contains autobiographical elements. Like the protagonist, Adam Gordon, Lerner grew up in Topeka and won a national debate championship in high school, and like Adam's mother Jane in the novel, Lerner's mother, Harriet Lerner, is a psychologist who has published best-selling books aimed at a non-academic audience. [4] Critics Rumaan Alam and Christine Smallwood have referred to the book as an example of autofiction. [5] [4]

Plot summary

The novel is set primarily in Topeka, Kansas, in the late 1990s, [6] and is told mainly from the perspective of three characters: Adam Gordon, a high school debate champion, and his parents Jane and Jonathan, who are psychologists at a local institution known as the Foundation. In a nonlinear narrative, the novel explores Adam's preparation for a national debate championship (which he wins), his relationship with his girlfriend Amber, and his parents' lives. One of Adam's classmates, Darren Eberheart, a social misfit and patient of Adam's father, also features in a sequence of shorter chapters that culminates in him seriously injuring a girl at a party who rejected his romantic advances after years of bullying by his peers. The final chapter takes place in 2019 and follows Adam, now a father of two young girls, as he and his wife take their family to Topeka from their home in New York City to give a reading of Adam's work. Back in New York City, they attend a protest of the Trump administration's family separation policy.

Reception

According to literary review aggregator Book Marks, the novel received mostly positive reviews. [7] Writing for The Paris Review , Nikki Shaner-Bradford praised Lerner's prose. [8] Christine Smallwood, writing for Harper's , referred to Lerner as a "supremely gifted prose stylist, at once theoretical and conversational". [4] Garth Risk Hallberg in The New York Times Book Review acclaimed the novel as “a high-water mark in recent American fiction.” [9]

The book was named one of the top ten books of 2019 by both the New York Times Book Review [10] and the Washington Post . [11]

Themes

Lerner describes The Topeka School as about, among other things, "a violent identity crisis among white men" in the 1990s that prefigured the election of Donald Trump in 2016. [2] One of the primary conflicts of the novel is between the prevailing political centrism and "end of history" rhetoric of the time, accepted largely unthinkingly by Adam and his cosmopolitan parents, and an undercurrent of right-wing anger voiced in its most extreme form by the protests of the Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church. [6] Critics have also noted the themes of toxic masculinity (especially in the Darren subplot) and the breakdown of language as a medium of communication, epitomized by the debating technique of "the spread," wherein a debater tries to overwhelm their opponent with as many arguments as possible regardless of their merit. [4]

Awards and honors

YearAwardResultRef.
2020 Folio Prize Shortlisted [12]
2019 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for FictionWon [13]
2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Finalist [14]
2019 National Book Critics Circle Award for FictionFinalist [15]
2020 Orwell Prize for Political FictionLonglisted [16]

Related Research Articles

Louise Erdrich American author (born 1954)

Louise Erdrich is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a federally recognized tribe of the Anishinaabe.

Pulitzer Prize Award for achievements in journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States

The Pulitzer Prize is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher, and is administered by Columbia University. Prizes are awarded yearly in twenty-one categories. In twenty of the categories, each winner receives a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award. The winner in the public service category is awarded a gold medal.

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction American award for distinguished novels

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during the preceding calendar year. As the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, it was one of the original Pulitzers; the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year.

Richard Powers American novelist

Richard Powers is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. His novel The Echo Maker won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction. He has also won many other awards over the course of his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship. As of 2021, Powers has published thirteen novels and has taught at the University of Illinois and Stanford University. He won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory.

Colson Whitehead American novelist (born 1969)

Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead is an American novelist. He is the author of eight novels, including his 1999 debut work The Intuitionist and The Underground Railroad (2016), for which he won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction again in 2020 for The Nickel Boys. He has also published two books of non-fiction. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Genius Grant.

Alice McDermott American writer, novelist, essayist (born 1953)

Alice McDermott is an American writer and university professor. For her 1998 novel Charming Billy she won an American Book Award and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.

Anthony Doerr American author

Anthony Doerr is an American author of novels and short stories. He gained widespread recognition for his 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Marilynne Robinson American novelist and essayist

Marilynne Summers Robinson is an American novelist and essayist. Across her writing career, Robinson has received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005, National Humanities Medal in 2012, and the 2016 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. In 2016, Robinson was named in Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people. Robinson began teaching at the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1991 and retired in the spring of 2016.

Ben Lerner American writer

Benjamin S. Lerner is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and critic. He has been a Fulbright Scholar, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, a finalist for the National Book Award, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Howard Foundation Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a MacArthur Fellow, among other honors. In 2011 he won the "Preis der Stadt Münster für internationale Poesie", the first American to receive the honor. Lerner teaches at Brooklyn College, where he was named a Distinguished Professor of English in 2016.

Adam Haslett American writer and journalist

Adam Haslett is an American fiction writer and journalist. His debut short story collection, You Are Not a Stranger Here, and his second novel, Imagine Me Gone, were both finalists for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American Academy in Berlin. In 2017, he won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Adam Rapp is an American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, musician and film director. His play Red Light Winter was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2006.

Christine Schutt, an American novelist and short story writer, has been a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She received her BA and MA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and her MFA from Columbia University. She is also a senior editor at NOON, the literary annual published by Diane Williams.

Laila Lalami Moroccan-American writer, and professor

Laila Lalami is a Moroccan-American novelist, essayist, and professor. After earning her Licence de lettres degree in Morocco, she received a fellowship to study in the United Kingdom (UK), where she earned an MA in linguistics.

In literary criticism, autofiction is a form of fictionalized autobiography.

Carole Cadwalladr British investigative journalist

Carole Jane Cadwalladr is a British author, investigative journalist and features writer. She is a features writer for The Observer and formerly worked at The Daily Telegraph. Cadwalladr rose to international prominence in 2018 for her role in exposing the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal for which she was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, alongside The New York Times reporters.

Jo Becker

Jo Becker is an American journalist and author and a three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. She works as an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

Rebecca Makkai American novelist and short-story writer

Rebecca Makkai is an American novelist and short-story writer.

<i>The Nickel Boys</i> 2019 novel by Colson Whitehead

The Nickel Boys is a 2019 novel by American novelist Colson Whitehead. It is based on the real story of the Dozier School, a reform school in Florida that operated for 111 years and had its history exposed by a university investigation. It was named one of TIME's best books of the decade. It is the follow-up to Whitehead's 2016 novel The Underground Railroad, which won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

<i>All Souls</i> (novel) 2008 novel by Christine Schutt

All Souls is a 2008 novel by American writer Christine Schutt. The book takes place in New York City, and follows the lives of faculty and students at the fictional Siddons School.

<i>Leave Society</i> 2021 novel by Tao Lin

Leave Society is a 2021 novel by Tao Lin. It is his fourth novel, and tenth book overall.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "The Topeka School - Digital Audio". Macmillan . Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  2. 1 2 Leyshon, Cressida (20 May 2019). "Ben Lerner on Adolescence and His Forthcoming Novel". The New Yorker. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  3. ↑ Maher, John (May 4, 2020). "Moser, Whitehead, McDaniel, Grandin, Boyer, Brown Win 2020 Pulitzers". Publishers Weekly . Retrieved May 4, 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Smallwood, Christine (1 October 2019). "Novel, Essay, Poem". Harper's. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  5. ↑ Alam, Rumaan (20 September 2019). "The MAGA Plot". The New Republic. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  6. 1 2 Brady, Amy (October 2, 2019). "The Topeka of The Topeka School". Slate . Retrieved October 3, 2019.
  7. ↑ "The Topeka School". Book Marks . Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  8. ↑ Shaner-Bradford, Nikki (28 June 2019). "Staff Picks: Peonies, Poetry, and Passing Things". The Paris Review. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  9. ↑ Hallberg, Garth Risk (2019-10-03). "Ben Lerner's 'The Topeka School' Revisits the Debates of the '90s". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-10-05.
  10. ↑ "The 10 Best Books of 2019". The New York Times . November 22, 2019. Retrieved November 26, 2019.
  11. ↑ "Best Books of 2019". The Washington Post . November 21, 2019. Retrieved November 26, 2019.
  12. ↑ "2020". The Rathbones Folio Prize . Archived from the original on February 14, 2021. Retrieved February 24, 2021.
  13. ↑ "2019 Book Prize Winners & Finalists". Festival of Books . Retrieved February 24, 2021.
  14. ↑ "2020 Pulitzer Prize Winners & Finalists". The Pulitzer Prizes . Retrieved February 24, 2021.
  15. ↑ Kellogg, Carolyn (January 11, 2020). "Announcing the finalists for the 2019 NBCC Awards". National Book Critics Circle . Retrieved February 24, 2021.
  16. ↑ "Orwell Prize Longlists for Political Writing and Political Fiction 2020". The Orwell Foundation . April 8, 2020. Retrieved February 24, 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.