“The Topeka School” by Ben Lerner

The Topeka School: A Novel

By Ben Lerner
2019
272 pages / 10 hours and 34 minutes
Fiction

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It is actually rather difficult (perhaps impossible) to evaluate the long-term greatness of a novel in the moment of its publishing. One of the reasons I have chosen to do 21st-century novels is that there is so much out there to read and almost everyone needs a little guidance about what is worth their time. So I freely admit I do not know how The Topeka School will fare in the test of time. I do know that the New York Times Book Review chose it as one of the five best novels of 2019. I think it is an absolutely superb novel for our time.

It is another book that is working on so many levels it is hard to explain what the novel is really about. Here are a few threads that Lerner weaves together. The school of the title is something like the real Menninger Clinic in Kansas, but it is thoroughly fiction. So here in the midst of middle America (you can't get more in the middle of America than Kansas) you have this liberal, progressive, educated therapeutic community. Ah, we already have the potential for interesting conflicts.

Domestic drama? We have it in spades here. There’s a woman trying to reckon with the legacy of her abusive father and marriage infidelity among a group of very close friends. In this mix of political and domestic strife there is also a deep meditation on masculinity, especially masculinity of the most toxic kind. There will be violence.

Although the novel is told from a variety of points of view, Adam is the main character and his chief claim to fame is that he is a high school debater of the very first rank. In fact, considerable tension ramps up in the novel as Adam participates in the national championship debate.

High school debate doesn't sound like a very promising premise for a riveting novel. Friday Night Lights it ain't. But Lerner uses this tiny world to raise very big questions. In the debate world of the novel the latest thing in winning a debate is to talk as fast as you can, throw as many things against the wall as you can, raise so many issues that your opponent can't possibly respond to all of them. Thus, by debate rules if she fails to answer them the point is considered won. This becomes the occasion for very ... well ... learned reflection by Lerner on how we have public discussion in America today. Conversation has become a bloodsport rather than the opportunity to understand and be understood and thus for greater wisdom to emerge.

The novel is not exactly a linear, plot-driven, straightforward story, and it won't be everyone's cup of tea. But every preacher out there must wrestle with the fragility of our families, the difficulty of defining healthy masculinity in our world, and the constant problem of how we can actually have meaningful conversations with one another.