The Topeka School

There’s a long history of books about mental illness that regard the subject as though it exists in a bubble—something that impacts a single individual, or maybe a family, but is otherwise disconnected from broader social and political realities.

Ben Lerner’s semi-autobiographical novel hit me somewhere deep in my chest because it does precisely the opposite. With a mounting sense of dread, his book explores psychological disturbance and the attempts to treat it as phenomena rooted firmly in our world, and all the messy smaller worlds within: worlds of privilege, misogyny, and xenophobia, to name a few. I still think… show more.

I was eager to read Ben Lerner’s fictional rendition of his mother’s life.

Harriet Goldhor Lerner, psychologist and writer, was a role model for my own self-help books. She gave advice without sounding pompous. She was modest, compassionate, avoided psychobabble, and was vocal about the restraints society places on women.

Ben’s novel was full of revelations I later verified to be true.

I was appalled to learn how much criticism his mother got from her colleagues for popularizing complex psychoanalytical concepts. Sad to learn she received threatening phone calls by men who held her responsible for their failed marriages… show more.