"The lost boys of privilege": Triangulation and the End of History in Ben Lerner's The Topeka School

Abstract

Abstract: In Ben Lerner's 2019 novel The Topeka School , which is largely set in 1990s Kansas, the aggressive demeanor of protagonist Adam Gordon, a champion high school debater, closely resembles the confrontational style of Newt Gingrich. Yet Adam also draws on Clinton's strategy of triangulation in an attempt to synthesize two sides of his personality: the hypermasculine front he presents to his friends, and the sensitive pro-feminist harboring poetic ambitions. Lerner applies geopolitical terminology drawn from the recently ended nuclear threat and from the "end of history" concept, to the descriptions of violence and anomie among the novel's teenage boys; this further underlines Adam's internal conflict regarding his masculinity. Adam eventually grows disillusioned with these hypermasculine norms, and when he reflects back on this period two decades later, he draws some stark parallels between the combative political tactics of 1990s Republicans, which his teenage friends had sought to emulate, and the licensing of extreme behaviors under Trump's presidency.