Let’s get this out of the way: As my own literary ambitions stalled—mostly due to poorly handled and occasionally crippling episodes of depression and anxiety, along with a poor aptitude for managing my career—I became increasingly jealous of Ben Lerner’s success. At the kind of hangouts in the Brooklyn literary demimonde, where youngish, aspiring writers and critics gather over drinks with older scenester types like me, whenever asked my opinion of his work, I’d say something like, “How many writers my age had to die just so Ben Lerner could write thinly disguised autobiographical fiction about looking at paintings and guilt about eating perfectly tenderized, grilled octopus with his agent?” As soon as the words would leave my mouth, I’d feel ashamed. Rather than attending to the work, I was surrendering to the pseudo-culture of personality that largely consists in coming up with spurious ad hominem reasons to vent valueless opinions. I was doing my bit to feed the cycle of resentment, hype, hyperbole, and backlash that I’d once experienced from the other side. Wasn’t my real problem that my agent had politely washed her hands of me in 2013, while taking me out for the $24.95 sashimi lunch special at Japonica? There were two thin slices of raw octopus, firm and not too chewy, but no second book contract.
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