Transcription (Ben Lerner)

I was so taken with Ben Lerner's new novel that I had to get on a three-way call with my sisters (also reading it) just to parse the ending. A mid-forties writer returns to Brown U for a final interview with his Werner Herzog-esque mentor, but breaks his phone and is unable to record the conversation. What follows is a sharp, searching novel about fatherhood, memory, technology, and disconnect. I cried twice.