10:04

Ben Lerner

See the full ranking

In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unexpected literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child, despite his dating a rising star in the visual arts. In a New York of increasingly frequent super storms and political unrest, he must reckon with his biological mortality, the possibility of a literary afterlife, and the prospect of (unconventional) fatherhood in a city that might soon be under water. In prose that captures what it's like to be alive now, when the difficulty of imagining a future has changed our relation to both our present and our past, Lerner explores sex, friendship, medicine, memory, art, and politics. 10:04 is both a riveting work of fiction and a brilliant examination of the role fiction plays in our lives.