The Topeka School

Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of 1997. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author and his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting 'lost boys' to open up. They both work at the Foundation, a well-known psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater and orator, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is an aspiring poet. He is – although it requires a great deal of posturing, weight lifting and creatine supplements – one of the cool kids, passing himself off as a 'real man,' ready to fight or (better) freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak. Adam is also one of the seniors who brings the loner Darren Eberheart – who is, unbeknownst to Adam, his father's patient – into the social scene, with disastrous effects.Deftly shifting perspectives and time periods, Ben Lerner's The Topeka School is the story of a family's struggles and strengths and the challenge of raising a good son in a culture of toxic masculinity.

'An education in the sympathetic imagination, a deep and bracing intellectual challenge, a powerful political statement ... This is a novel to cherish.' -- The Observer
'Ben Lerner is arguably the hottest novelist writing in America today, in complete control of his ideas and his prose, and ambitious with both.' -- The Telegraph

Ben Lerner was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1979. He has received fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Foundations, and is the author of the internationally acclaimed novels Leaving the Atocha Station and 10:04, and an essay, The Hatred of Poetry. His poetry collections include The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw, and Mean Free Path. Lerner is a professor of English at Brooklyn College. John Moraitis has worked on various projects for BBC Radio 4, Universal Films, DreamWorks and BBC2, as well as national radio campaigns and numerous computers games. Christopher Ragland is a British-based American actor and voice artist. He has provided voices for numerous video games including Driver: San Francisco. He also starred in the documentary series I Shouldn't Be Alive, as Travis Wright. He joined the voice cast of Thomas & Friends in 2015, voicing Percy and Trevor in the US, and the Troublesome Trucks in both the UK and US. Regina Reagan is an American voice artist who has narrated a host of unabridged audiobooks including Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs and many of Lisa Gardner’s thrilling mysteries. She has also voiced countless characters in cartoons, anime and videogames.

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