Leaving the Atocha Station

2013 | Fiction & Poetry

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Veering between the comic and tragic, the self-contemptuous and the inspired, this is a dazzling introduction to one of the smartest, funniest and most audacious writers of a generation. Read an interview with the author here or find some suggestions for further reading here.

Synopsis
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 attitude towards art. Fuelled by strong coffee and self-prescribed tranquillizers, Adam's 'research' soon becomes a meditation on the possibility of authenticity, as he finds himself increasingly troubled by the uncrossable distance between himself and the world around him. It's not just his imperfect grasp of Spanish, but the underlying suspicion that his relationships, his reactions, and his entire personality are just as fraudulent as his poetry.

Ben Lerner (Author)