The Topeka School by Ben Lerner.
Ben Lerner follows a gifted high-school debater and his family in 1990s Topeka. Adolescence, psychotherapy and public speech intersect as the novel examines how a culture teaches its young men to speak and compete.
Read it for the difference between winning an argument and understanding another person. The book asks what language becomes when its chief purpose is to overpower.
Granta paperback, ISBN 9781783785377. Cover image supplied by Allen & Unwin.
The Apple Books and Kobo options are the FSG ebook, ISBN 9780374721183; the Allen & Unwin option is the pictured Granta paperback offered in Australia.
