10:04 may be a work of spectacular self-involvement but, happily, the self with which it is centrally involved proves to be one of the most curious and engaging characters in recent fiction. Haven’t we read this one-the one about the postmodern novelist struggling to write his next novel-several dozen times before? Do we really need another 250 pages on the rarefied agonies of fiction-making? At this point (the book’s second paragraph), readers may begin to shift in their seats. Lerner’s “The Golden Vanity” in the June 18, 2012, issue of The New Yorker), Ben’s agent believes she can secure him a “strong six-figure” advance for a follow-up novel. Now, thanks to a short story of his that has just appeared in The New Yorker (cf. Ben has recently published a very well-received first novel, never named, but which even the most casual observer of contemporary literature will struggle not to conflate with Lerner’s own very well-received debut, Leaving the Atocha Station (2011). Ben Lerner’s new novel tells the story of a young American writer (“Ben”) who, like Lerner, lives in Brooklyn.
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