BEN LERNER'S '10:04'

When Ben Lerner produced his first novel Leaving the Atocha Station in 2011, he was already an acclaimed poet with three highly regarded collections of poetry to his name. He published his début, which centered on a young American poet on a fellowship in Madrid, with Coffee House Press and “didn’t think anyone would read it,” he says. Leaving the Atocha Station went on to become one of the most talked-about novels of the year, appearing on several best-books lists. Now Lerner is back with a new novel, 10:04, which again focuses on an American writer trying to finish a creative work. This time, the narrator is a poet who, having earned critical accolades with his first novel from a small press, receives a six-figure advance from a major New York publishing house to write a new one.

What makes Lerner such an exciting writer, however, is neither irony nor clever metafiction. 10:04 is not a mere novel about a writer writing the novel that the reader is reading. Far from it. As the narrator of 10:04 explains to his agent, his plans for his new novel are more ambitious than that: “I’ll work my way from irony to sincerity in the sinking city, a would be Whitman of the vulnerable grid.” Set mostly in present-day New York and bookended by the two recent hurricanes, Irene and Sandy, 10:04 covers a lot of ground: lavish consumption and the Occupy Wall Street movement, Donald Judd’s installation in Marfa, Texas, and damaged art works freed from the market, artificial insemination and sex between best friends, and much more.

On a summer afternoon in Brooklyn, Lerner talked about his new novel and what attracts him to poetry and to the novel. Lerner’s novelistic output shares certain characteristics with his poetry. “Poetry is the event of reading the poem and not what the poem describes in the world, even though those two are inextricable,” says Lerner. “Great poems, like those of John Ashbery, never quite become real. They have strategies for defeating their actuality in order to preserve a glimmer of the potentiality of poetry.”

The narrator of 10:04 eventually turns his back on the idea of writing a novel to “compose verse underwritten by a millionaire’s foundation.” Lerner has more admiration for the novel than his narrator does. “What I love about the novel is the way it can absorb other genres into one structure,” he explains. “The novel is fundamentally curatorial. In a novel, you can narrate the construction of a poem, narrate an encounter with the art of Donald Judd, discuss the anxiety of narrative, and include elements of criticism.” In fact, 10:04 includes a discussion of the “Institute of Totaled Art,” a veiled account of the real Salvage Art Institute, which collects damaged works of art deemed valueless by the market, and about which Lerner has already brilliantly written in an essay for Harper’s Magazine.

In addition to its æsthetic merits, 10:04 is also a search for values besides the financial. “The novel can be totally honest about how literary reproduction and class reproduction get caught up with one another,” says Lerner. “For me, writing 10:04 was also a way to track my own movement into the contradictions of the book as a commodity. The novel is part of the market, but that does not mean that it’s a commodity like any other. One thing that the novel can do is show the discrepancy between the extreme wealth and the extreme poverty that coexist in an urban environment like New York, every day before our very eyes.”

Like few contemporary novels today, 10:04 tells you exactly how the food gets on your plate and who is serving you. In an era of ironic detachment and political apathy, Lerner’s 10:04 makes a strong case for art that can move from irony to sincerity. This is not the bogus sincerity of reality TV, where everyone wants to tell their story, but sincerity, still mediated by form and language, that seeks to imagine new possibilities of being, feeling, and thinking together. Speaking about this new need for sincerity, Lerner says, “10:04 uses artistic form to research new forms of feeling and thinking that are not merely monetary and to imagine new ways of collective being.”

In 1993, in his essay on television and literature, David Foster Wallace lamented the stasis of the self-conscious irony of American contemporary metafiction, which could no longer separate itself from the “passive addictive TV-psychology” it was trying so hard to assault. Wallace couldn’t see what lay ahead for American literature, which for him had only two equally depressing alternatives: impotent postmodern ironists or the sincere “anti-rebels” of the future who’d be “backward, quant, naïve, anachronistic.” He ends his essay on an urgent question of where to go next. The answer is Ben Lerner.

10:04 is out Tuesday from Faber and Faber.

Alisa Sniderman is a writer based in New York. Her writing has appeared in Salon, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Sydney Morning Herald, and elsewhere.

Prabal Gurung's New Book

The Nepalese designer celebrates a decade of championing diversity, inclusion, and a world made “stronger through color” with his vibrant clothing in his first monograph.

Avan Jogia Follows Wherever His Curiosity Leads

With roles in Gregg Araki’s new series Now Apocalypse and this week’s Shaft reboot along with a forthcoming book of poetry and directorial début, the former Nickelodeon star continues to celebrate the freedom to explore and experiment creatively.

Tonne Goodman Shares Her 'Point of View'

In her new book, the celebrated former Vogue fashion director shares images from her childhood, her modeling career, and her family life, along with the countless editorials, advertisements, and covers to which she has lent her crisp eye over the years.

Ethan James Green Photographs 'Young New York'

In his first book, the young photographer shares a personal project of eloquent black-and-white portraits of New York’s trans, non-binary, and queer community.

Lola & Pani Find Brotherhood in 'Northern Rivers'

In their new book, the London-based photographer duo capture a crew of lifelong friends over the course of a seemingly endless summer in Australia.

FUMI NAGASAKA STARTS A 'TEENAGE RIOT'

In her second book, the Japanese photographer captures the individual personalities and æsthetics of four adolescent girls in their hometowns in a collection that is both intimate and anthropological.

RO KWON ON CULTS AND YOUNG LOVE IN 'THE INCENDIARIES'

In her propulsive début novel, ten years in the making, the author ponders the unfathomability of others in the tale of a young woman who joins a cult.

MARTIN ZÄHRINGER GOES FISHING WITH JOHN BAKER

In his first book, the London-based photographer documents every facet of the life of a Barbadian fisherman with whom he felt an immediate kinship, acting as both visitor and companion.

MARIO SORRENTI SHOWS A NEW SIDE OF KATE MOSS

In a new book of previously unreleased photographs, the famed photographer spotlights the iconic model’s innocence from their days of youthful love.

SEBASTIAN BECKWITH DEMYSTIFIES TEA

In his first book, the In Pursuit of Tea founder shares twenty-plus years of experience in a mix of history, cultural study, and instruction manual.

SKATER-SLASH-PHOTOGRAPHER IAN KENNETH BIRD HEADS INTO THE STUDIO

After making his name capturing his friends skating around East London, the British photographer opts for the purity of a white studio for his latest book, Untitled Portraits.

PHOTOGRAPHER NICOLAS KERN CAPTURES THE "CONSTANT NOW" IN HIS BOOK 'ZEITGEISTER'

The photographer finds intimate moments in the juxtaposition between the soon-to-be-extinct medium of large-format instant photography and over sixty new faces shot over just four days.

TYLER WETHERALL TURNS HISTORY INTO MEMORY IN HER MEMOR 'NO WAY HOME'

In her début memoir, the young author recounts a life growing up the child of a convicted pot smuggler and fugitive from the law, reinforcing her relationship with her father and exploring the process of alchemizing her own past into memory.

ADRIAN GAUT PHOTOGRAPHS ALONG WILSHIRE BOULEVARD

In his first book, the photographer captures one of Los Angeles’s iconic thoroughfares with an eye to abstract imagery, finding coherence in Southern California’s diverse sprawl.

MATS GUSTAFSON ILLUSTRATES THE BODY'S FRAGILITY IN 'NUDE'

In a book of watercolors, the Swedish artist and illustrator turns away from his fashion work for more intimate portraits that reflect the fragility of the human body as a protest against the slow response to the AIDS crisis.

NEW YORK BY THE LAST MAGAZINE: AUTHOR ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN SAYS WRITING IS LIKE PLAYING A VIDEO GAME

In her novel and short stories, the Staten Island-based author probes the border between science and literature with discomfiting tales about the body and its relationship to the perilous world around it.

HERMIONE HOBY'S 'NEON IN DAYLIGHT' REINVENTS THE NEW YORK NOVEL FOR A NEW AGE

In her début novel, the young British author ponders questions of selfhood and power dynamics in a thoughtful bildungsroman set during a sweltering New York summer.

SALLY ROONEY TALKS TO HER FRIENDS

In her sparkling début novel, the Irish author questions power dynamics and imbalances of privilege while reflecting on communication in the digital age.