09-21-2020

Ben Lerner’s debut novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, follows Adam, a young poet (presumably modeled on Lerner himself), as he meanders through a year-long fellowship in Spain. The narrative unfurls at a leisurely pace; most of it is spent listening to Adam’s musings as he rolls spliffs, takes walks, and struggles against his never-ending FOMO. The book, light on plot and local color, provides few distractions from Adam’s volatile stream of consciousness. Luckily, Lerner’s dramatic prose and piercing sense of humor make for engaging company.

Painfully self-conscious and hopelessly egotistical, Adam takes advantage of his status as an inarticulate American to avoid investing in the places and people around him. Most characters he meets, save a few key exceptions, remain sketches. The details of their conversations are muddied by Adam who, seemingly incapable of delivering a literal translation, instead offers the reader variations on a theme.

After a few months in Spain, however, the cover of linguistic ineptitude becomes harder and harder to keep up. As his relationship with an English teacher named Isabel comes to a close, Adam tries to blame his lack of empathy on his poor Spanish. “You are fluent in Spanish, Adán”, replies Isabel, a simple statement of fact which shatters Adam’s carefully crafted persona.

In the latter half of the novel, Adam is forced to abandon his comfortable world of “potentiality” as he is brought face to face with the turbulence of Spanish politics. He is guided through the ensuing turmoil by a Teresa, his latest lover and a member of a young, fashionable group of Spanish literati. A foil to Adam, she’s able to fit in everywhere, transitioning seamlessly from political protests to readings at a local posh art gallery. A successful translator herself, her interest in Adam’s poetry eventually nudges him into the literary spotlight and towards the end of his Spanish “project".

Both Lerner and Adam openly acknowledge influence of John Ashbery, and one wonders if Lerner’s own decision to go abroad was inspired by Ashbery’s formative experience translating and studying in Paris. Adam’s reflections on Ashbery’s elusiveness could just as well describe his relationship with Spain itself: “It is as through the actual Ashbery poem were concealed from you, written on the other side of a mirrored surface, and you saw only the reflection of your reading.” Lerner places the reader in a similar predicament. Though his language often seems intensely personal, he never quite allows the reader to forget that they're only a tourist in this uncomfortable, riveting landscape.