INTERNATIONAL BOOKS
Fiction
The Topeka School
Ben Lerner (Allen & Unwin, $45)
How to make a novel seem... novel? Ben Lerner walks a fine line between erudite and esoteric, but what this coming-of-age story lacks in plot and momentum it makes up for in characterisation, imaginative detail and profundity. (I now want to seek out Lerner’s backlist.) Topeka High School senior Adam Gordon has a firmly middle-class upbringing, two doting shrinks for parents, is top of the debating team and has no shortage of female admirers – surely “He’ll Be OK” (to reference Celia Lashlie)? Or will he end up a self-centred, third-generation adulterer, using his slick oratory skills to justify society’s immorality and mock his mum’s career success? And are Adam’s attempts to include an outlier classmate (who’s not so much on the spectrum as on his
