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Leaving the Atocha Station

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Leaving the Atocha Station

Written by: Ben Lerner
Narrated by: Ben Lerner
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About this listen

Adam Gordon is a brilliant, if highly unreliable, young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, struggling to establish his sense of self and his relationship to art. Instead of following the dictates of his fellowship, Adam's 'research' becomes a meditation on the possibility of the genuine in the arts and beyond: are his relationships with the people he meets in Spain as fraudulent as he fears his poems are? Is poetry an essential art form, or merely a screen for the reader's projections? A witness to the 2004 Madrid train bombings and their aftermath, does he participate in historic events or merely watch them pass him by?

©2011 Ben Lerner (P)2011 Dreamscape Media Genre Fiction
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What the critics say

"[A] noteworthy debut.... Lerner has fun with the interplay between the unreliable spoken word and subtleties in speech and body language, capturing the struggle of a young artist unsure of the meaning or value of his art...[and] succeeds in drawing out the problems inherent in art, expectation, and communication. And his Adam is a complex creation, relatable but unreliable, humorous but sad, at once a young man adrift and an artist intensely invested in his surroundings." ( Publishers Weekly)
"Well written and full of captivating ideas." ( Library Journal)
"[P]rofoundly evocative.... [Lerner] cleverly, seductively, and hilariously investigates the nature of language and storytelling, veracity and fraud." ( Booklist)

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Like a Surrealist painting come to life

I made the mistake of starting this trilogy with its final volume - The Topeka School - so am only finding this one after meeting Adam in New York, protesting the Trump administration. The curiously monotonic delivery of the author seems exactly right for this story, (an echo of which he describes in his first reading in Madrid) and I kept thinking about Hemingway as Lerner sketches out his debauchery tour through his Foundation year in Spain. It is not for the faint of heart, with its nods to David Foster Wallace and fears of addiction, mental health and pharmacology; still, it is lovely to think of him standing in front of Picasso's Guernica in Madrid, and reflecting on toxic masculinity.

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Enjoyable

this book was surprisingly easily to listen to. The author/reader feels comfortable exposing himself to the listener while consistsnly demonstrating growth through out the story. I really liked it.

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Ben Lerner is the real deal.

An elegant balance between brutal honesty and poetic genius. This As real as it gets. A story of a 20-something poet on a fellowship finding himself through his craft and through the nightlife and tumultuous relationships, a brilliant view into the human condition.

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