1004
2016 Longlist

10:04

ABOUT
THE BOOK

In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unlikely literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal medical condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child. In a New York of increasingly frequent superstorms and social unrest, he must reckon with his own mortality and the prospect of fatherhood in a city that might soon be underwater.

Lerner captures what it’s like to be alive now, during the twilight of an empire, when the difficulty of imagining a future is changing our relationship to both the present and the past.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Ben
Lerner

Born and raised in Topeka, Kansas, writer and editor Ben Lerner earned a BA in political science and an MFA in creative writing from Brown University. He has served as a Fulbright scholar in Madrid and as a Guggenheim fellow. In 2015 he was awarded a prestigious MacArthur fellowship.

Lerner is the author of several full-length poetry collections, including No Art (2016); Mean Free Path (2010); Angle of Yaw (2006), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Northern California Book Award; and the sonnet sequence The Lichtenberg Figures (2004), which won the Hayden Carruth Award, was chosen by Library Journal as one of the year’s 12 best poetry books, and was a Lannan Literary Selection. His poetry has also been included in the anthologies 12×12: Conversations in Poetry and Poetics (2009), New Voices (2008), and Best American Poetry. His novels include The Topeka School (2019), 10:04 (2014), and Leaving the Atocha Station (2011).

Born and raised in Topeka, Kansas, writer and editor Ben Lerner earned a BA in political science and an MFA in creative writing from Brown University. He has served as a Fulbright scholar in Madrid and as a Guggenheim fellow. In 2015 he was awarded a prestigious MacArthur fellowship.

Lerner is the author of several full-length poetry collections, including No Art (2016); Mean Free Path (2010); Angle of Yaw (2006), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Northern California Book Award; and the sonnet sequence The Lichtenberg Figures (2004), which won the Hayden Carruth Award, was chosen by Library Journal as one of the year’s 12 best poetry books, and was a Lannan Literary Selection. His poetry has also been included in the anthologies 12×12: Conversations in Poetry and Poetics (2009), New Voices (2008), and Best American Poetry. His novels include The Topeka School (2019), 10:04 (2014), and Leaving the Atocha Station (2011).

NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

10:04 is a singular experience, an out of the box, and high concept, but manages to avoid being too clever for its own good. The writing is pristine and you feel smarter just by having read it.

Crossing the line between author and narrator, this sweeping look at modern city life evokes Walt Whitman as it takes its characters between conception, life and death, while exploring the writing life.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
13/10/2015
Author
Publisher
Faber and Faber

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