Ben Lerner, Leaving the Atocha Station: It is easy and common enough to write a character who is fascinating in their misery and self-obsession, and somewhat less frequent for that misery and self-obsession to be interesting enough to frame a story around. But it works here, largely because of the gradual reveal of competence, not self-sabotaging as a way of staving off failure but self-sabotage making the person worse than they ought to be. Not good enough of a reading experience to merit follow-up, at least within the next few years, but the hype, I believe it.
No comments:
Post a Comment