Advance Praise

“Ben Lerner’s novels contain some of the best art criticism I’ve encountered. His analysis is embodied but self-conscious, erudite but sincere. That’s why I’m looking forward to Transcription, about a non-interview with a ‘giant in the arts.’ I wouldn’t trust many writers to make a ‘plot’ like that worth my time, but I trust him.”
—Lisa Yin Zhang, Hyperallergic

“It’s every journalist’s worst nightmare, and yet, Lerner’s book still comes as a delightful exploration of mentorship, fatherhood, and a career in the arts, as well as a testament to our growing reliance on technology as a store of cultural memory.”
—CULTURED (Best Anticipated)

“Beautiful and resonant . . . Lerner’s lyrical narrative brims with insights into how memories take and change shape, the nature of father figures, and the ways an artist’s influence echoes through time. It’s a knockout.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Transcription is another masterful intervention from a writer of unparalleled exactitude and intelligence. Lerner's linguistic precision, stylistic brilliance and philosophical range are not only thrilling things to encounter on the page, they are gentle surgical tools for a tender existential operation upon the reader. They crack open a profound reckoning with how we are living now, and the effect is genuinely startling. We call this fiction, but it is much, much more.”
—Max Porter, author of Shy

“Transcription is both dizzyingly accomplished and disarmingly tender—an acutely elegant and forensic meditation on the disorientation of what it means to be alive now.”
—Sophie Mackintosh, author of Cursed Bread

"Some of the most vivid, offbeat, and affecting writing Lerner has delivered . . . [Transcription is] surprisingly potent given its length, interested in the ways that we manufacture our identities and how technology speeds the process along."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)