Transcription by Ben Lerner

Posted by Ms A on August 5, 2026 in Book Club Fodder | Leave a comment

For those unfamiliar with the name, Ben Lerner is an American poet, novelist, essayist and critic. He is an English professor at Brooklyn College and the author of The Topeka School, Leaving the Atocha Station and several acclaimed works of poetry.

You might not find Lerner’s latest novel, Transcription (released in April), at the airport bookshop. This is one you’ll probably have to ask for or order in – not because it isn’t a quality read; just because it’s niche.

Transcription is a short (some would say slender) novel that explores contemporary themes of technology, our increasing reliance on recording devices, memory and change. It’s told through the story of an unnamed former student, now writer, who returns to his college town to interview his celebrated yet elusive English professor and mentor for a long-form article about the ninety year old’s life and achievements.

The carefully organised plan is to conduct the interview over several days, with every conversation recorded. The problem is that the interviewer can’t get his phone working before the first interview. Rather than admit the recording has failed, he pretends it’s still working while the professor offers an intimate and detailed account of his childhood, family and career.

A few years later, after the professor dies and the article unexpectedly becomes the last substantial interview published about him, the writer jokes publicly that parts of it may have been invented. The literary world is outraged, and the controversy that follows raises uncomfortable questions about memory, authorship and whether any act of transcription can ever be entirely faithful to the original conversation.

Interwoven with the interviews, the narrator is also revisiting and recounting his university days, reflecting on former relationships, familiar places and how much his life and world has changed. All while FaceTiming his young family from his hotel room each night – in other words, completely reliant on technology. 

I have enormous admiration for the way Lerner explores complex social changes through ordinary characters and seemingly everyday situations. While Transcription didn’t linger with me in quite the same way as The Topeka School, it’s still a gentle, thought-provoking novel….and slender too. 

And that’s my two cents’ worth.