Leaving the Atocha Station Summary
Ben Lerner

Leaving the Atocha Station Overview

An intimate narrative of contemporary exile and intellectual wandering, Ben Lerner’s novel Leaving the Atocha Station tells the story of a young American expatriate living in Spain during the George W. Bush years. The second invasion of Iraq by the United States forms the backdrop to a realistic portrayal of a young poet’s complicated quest to transcend his doubts, anxieties, and hard-won self-loathing. Lerner’s protagonist stands in for a generation of displaced upper middle-class Americans, striving to ethically justify their role in the world and their pretensions to historical and artistic relevance. Amongst other heady topics, Leaving the Atocha Station takes up the themes of repressed class conflict, mental illness, linguistic community, and the quest for a stable sense of self in a tumultuous world.