Ben Lerner taught me more about debating than I ever cared to know, particularly the meaning of "the spread" in which debaters cram their arguments with so many points hoping their opponent loses because they fail to address each one. This may be a metaphor for the simple tale that Lerner tells in a rather complex fashion. He mostly employs different stream-of-consciousness viewpoints within a single family that lives in 90s Topeka where the parents are transplanted East Coasters serving on the faculty of a progressive psychiatric institute that tries to help "lost boys."
Lerner's poetic language hits the mark more often than not.
The meth, a purer, measured version of which was circulating as prescribed through many of the bodies in the basement, dissolved the present, the future was the instant past; he already had the cup that he would reach for, less foreknew what track was coming next than heard it as it played in memory. Gotta grind, gotta get mine.
But it would take a more astute reader than me to untangle what he's trying to do with his engrossing if fractured family saga other than illustrate how each of us is fucked up in our very own way, and that our dysfunction has a lot to do with the particular home in which we were raised. Lerner contrasts Adam, his protagonist, an overachieving champion debater cum white rapper, with Darren, a social outcast. The former eventually matures into a New York City liberal protesting Trump's immigration policies with his Puerto Rican wife; the latter stays in Kansas and joins the remnants of the acutely homophobic Westboro Church, the group that gained national notoriety for picketing the funerals of AIDS victims. Lerner uses the "spread" to depict Adam's journey but I found myself empathizing a lot more with Darren, at least until the final revelation.
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