Skip to main content

Ben Lerner

Biography

Ben Lerner

Ben Lerner was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1979. He has received fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, Howard and MacArthur Foundations. His first novel, LEAVING THE ATOCHA STATION, won the 2012 Believer Book Award, and excerpts from 10:04 have been awarded The Paris Review's Terry Southern Prize. He has published three poetry collections: THE LICHTENBERG FIGURES, ANGLE OF YAW (a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry) and MEAN FREE PATH. Lerner is a professor of English at Brooklyn College.

Ben Lerner

Books by Ben Lerner

by Ben Lerner - Fiction

Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of ’97. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting "lost boys" to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak. Adam is also one of the seniors who bring the loner Darren Eberheart --- who is, unbeknownst to Adam, his father’s patient --- into the social scene, to disastrous effect.