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Gold Custody
104 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2021
29 people want to read
About the author
Ben Lerner
69 books1,742 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 of 1 review
January 27, 2022
There was a time when Ben Lerner was my favorite author, back in college when I read Leaving the Atocha Station, and after that, 10:04. And I still like Ben Lerner, for what its worth. But his writing is in sort of a circular rut, where the same themes play out again and again, and I'm not sure whether he's expanding the circle or just spinning aimlessly. I don't believe he is the Casanova he portrays himself as, sometimes in his writing. He's kind of arrogant, and I don't know if he realizes he comes off this way (yes, we know you won the MacArthur Grant). He drops the same phrases in different repetitions in many of his books (see: unseasonably warm weather). I wish he would write something extremely different than what he has been writing.
Nobody is writing like him at this time, but I don't always know that when he writes in big words, they are as filled with meaning as we might believe them to be. I've always seen his work as akin to David Foster Wallace, but humorless. If poetry is the act of weaving together ideas in intricate patterns, he certainly has a knack for weaving them in interesting ways. But does this matter? I'm not sure.
Point being, the book was interesting to read, I think. The first time I read it, I couldn't stop thinking "shut up!" But upon picking it up again, I was less irritated. Did I like it? I don't know.
Nobody is writing like him at this time, but I don't always know that when he writes in big words, they are as filled with meaning as we might believe them to be. I've always seen his work as akin to David Foster Wallace, but humorless. If poetry is the act of weaving together ideas in intricate patterns, he certainly has a knack for weaving them in interesting ways. But does this matter? I'm not sure.
Point being, the book was interesting to read, I think. The first time I read it, I couldn't stop thinking "shut up!" But upon picking it up again, I was less irritated. Did I like it? I don't know.
Displaying 1 of 1 review