FICTION

Necessary Errors

by Caleb Crain
Penguin. Aug. 2013. 472p. ISBN 9780143122418. pap. $16; ebk. ISBN 9781101613658. F
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Crain (American Sympathy) continues his ascendant career with this fully realized debut novel, which delights and surprises with every paragraph. The setting is 1990 Prague, a year after Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution, in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The story follows Jacob, a gay American college graduate whose ambitions of becoming a writer are frustrated by his surroundings. "'I'm an American,' Jacob protested. 'There's no one I can blame for holding me back.'" The plot is compelling, but Crain's talent for nuance and dialog, particularly in the gay bar scenes, is an observational wonder. Through a historic lens, Crain details the beautiful East European capital city's transition from Communist to democratic rule.
VERDICT Not an easy exercise in nostalgia, this novel is a pleasure to navigate with its large, likable cast. Fans of Ben Lerner's Leaving the Atocha Station will find themselves similarly enchanted here.
Reviewed by Travis Fristoe, Alachua Cty. Lib. Dist., Gainesville, FL , May 01, 2013
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