“Nothing was more American, whatever that means, than fleeing the American, whatever that is, and that their soft version of self-imposed exile was just another of the late empire’s package tours.”

Ben Lerner’s debut novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, is one of those heavily influenced-by-real-life novels that you actually enjoy reading.

Real life is often without a plot – not when you’re living it, at least. The wisdom, stupidity, and regret only emerge when you’re at a safe distance from performing life. Meaning, sometimes it is old age or a willing withdrawal that allows the luxury of musing.

A break from America

The protagonist, Adam – a poet, American, on a fellowship in Madrid – is the mirror image of, or very similar to, Lerner himself. Lerner too spent a brief period of time in Madrid on a fellowship as a young poet. Adam is an early-career poet and the interlude in Madrid offers a break from America – or, as he calls it, the United States of Bush – and Americans. He assumes a new identity, invents a complicated family background, and freely indulges in romances as the spiritual side quest of the fellowship.

Adam is financially well-endowed – or at least his professor parents are – and much of his time is spent getting high, hanging out on the streets, and practising his broken Spanish with the locals. He finds it nearly impossible to work on his poetry and feels deep embarrassment when he has to share his work, which he tries to avoid by creating diversions, self-criticism, and self-doubt.

Only, he’s constantly burdened by imposter syndrome – never quite at ease with his identity as a poet nor an American. These moments of self-loathing aren’t mere plot fillers but life events.

The irony is loud – Adam is granted an opportunity that many would kill to have. His entitlement, which is the result of being White, a man, and an American, expands into something bigger than himself – he’s uncomfortable, perennially anxious, and the long hours wandering in museums and cafes expound his loneliness.

Not just as a poet, Adam’s steady life back in America starts to become an impediment to really experiencing life. Witnessing a man sobbing to painting startles him, and he thinks,

“I had long worried that I was incapable of having a profound experience of art [...] and I had trouble believing that anyone had, at least anyone I knew. I was intensely suspicious of people who claimed a poem or painting or piece of music ‘changed their life,’ especially since I had often known these people before and after their experience and could register no change.”

A boy novel

It is hard to take his cynicism seriously, and Lerner is aware of how pompous Adam sounds. His spoiled ways manifest in almost all his relationships and everything he does – so much so that he does not bother to resolve his feelings and thoughts; they simply fade into each other.

Adam also takes advantage of knowing passable Spanish. Minor quabbles are blamed on the incomprehensibility of the language, of not knowing its grammar and nuances. This comes especially handy in dealing with women.

The wanderings of the lonely poet are interrupted by a terror attack at the Atocha railway station in Madrid. This is a real incident – 200 people were killed and America swooped in to fight terror on Spain’s behalf. The deadly attack, quite naturally, shakes Adam, who has travelled through Atocha and taken trains to different parts of the country. The subsequent elections are more dramatic than usual and when the socialists win, the United States of Bush predictably loses interest in being Spain’s ally.

Leaving the Atocha Station is very much a masculine, “boy novel.” There are no consequences for the hurt caused or wasted opportunities. Like the weed he smokes, Adam floats in a haze of pride and doubt. Even so, Adam’s story generates moments of humour and amusement – he’s sheepish as a poet, unaffected by the value in his craft (much praised by his peers), and remains pleasantly not-cocky. Like many “boy novels,” the women are interchangeable and somehow infinitely sympathetic to his moodiness. There are few chances to set him straight, which the women seize whenever they can.

Ben Lerner’s novel is self-indulgent in the way the best satires are. It abides by no formula, seamlessly poking fun at self-suffering, privileged first-worlders and the false promises of political revolutions. The joy is in its wisdom, worn lightly on its sleeves, and never letting the character-author overdshadow the author-character.

Leaving the Atocha Station, Ben Lerner, Granta.