Book description
A stunning, urgent, and original novel from Ben Lerner (The Topeka School and Leaving the Atocha Station) about making art, love, and children during the twilight of an empire.
Winner of The Paris Review's 2012 Terry Southern Prize
A Finalist for the 2014 Folio Prize and the NYPL Young Lions…
Why read it?
1 author picked 10 as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I go to Ben Lerner’s writing for the shimmering atmospheres of his fictional universes. 10:04 is set in contemporary New York City and follows the narrator-writer through his urban routines. But between his health scares, relationship worries, and professional commitments, the novel thrums with a strange, uneasy beat as the narrator questions the fabric of modern life in a large city. He feels the sublime abundance of the commodities that surround him, whose very abundance is precarious. The book meditates on the fragility of the global supply chains that bring cans of ground coffee onto supermarket shelves and into our…
From Laurence's list on touching the reality of modern life.
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