Ben Hamilton

Fact, fiction or farce? The American comic novel is becoming increasingly hard to define

In a novel as convoluted as Ben Lerner’s 10:04 it’s difficult to know when to laugh, according to Ben Hamilton’s review

issue 03 January 2015

The American comic novel is going through an odd phase. Just lately it seems like anything funny must sneak in behind an abstruse metafictional edifice, deployed, I suspect, by insecure authors who want to retain their jobs as teachers of creative writing. 10:04, Ben Lerner’s lopsided but often electric second novel, is the latest example of the comic genre via subterfuge, sprinkled with tricks and played so deadpan you might not know when
to laugh.

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