“Nothing was more American, whatever that means, than fleeing the American, whatever that is, and that their soft version of self-imposed exile was just another of the late empire’s package tours.”
Ben Lerner’s debut novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, is one of those heavily influenced-by-real-life novels that you actually enjoy reading.
Real life is often without a plot – not when you’re living it, at least. The wisdom, stupidity, and regret only emerge when you’re at a safe distance from performing life. Meaning, sometimes it is old age or a willing withdrawal that allows the luxury of musing.
A break from America
The protagonist, Adam – a poet, American, on a fellowship in Madrid – is the mirror image of, or very similar to, Lerner himself. Lerner too spent a brief period of time in Madrid on a fellowship as a young poet. Adam is an early-career poet and the interlude in Madrid offers a break from America – or, as he calls it, the United States of Bush – and Americans. He assumes a new identity, invents a complicated family background, and freely indulges in romances as the spiritual side quest of the fellowship.
Adam is financially well-endowed – or at least his professor parents are – and much of…
Source: Sunday book pick: Fleeing the ‘United States of Bush’ in Ben Lerner’s ‘Leaving the Atocha Station’
