{"id":30048,"date":"2023-04-03T15:46:56","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T19:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=30048"},"modified":"2023-04-10T16:02:04","modified_gmt":"2023-04-10T20:02:04","slug":"ben-lerner-the-ferry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2023\/04\/03\/ben-lerner-the-ferry\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Lerner: “The Ferry”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“The Ferry”<\/strong><\/span>
\nby Ben Lerner<\/span>
\nfrom the April 10, 2023 issue of\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″ hue=”” saturation=”” lightness=”” alpha=”” text_color=””]B[\/fusion_dropcap]en Lerner’s most recent novel, The Topeka School<\/em>, was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize. An excerpt from it was published in\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em> back in 2019 as “Ross Perot and China.” He does have a new book coming out in September of this year called\u00a0The Lights<\/em>, but it does not appear that “The Ferry” is a part of it, particularly since the new book is poetry. I think, therefore, that this story about a man getting an apologetic voicemail — though it’s the wrong number — is it’s own short story. I don’t mind excerpts as much as I used to, but I do still much prefer weeks we get a short story.<\/p>\n

Here is how “The Ferry” begins:<\/p>\n

Hey I understand you\u2019re angry, the first message said. A man\u2019s voice, probably a man my age. I would be angry, too. I know I messed up. I know it\u2019s not the first time I messed up. I have been dealing with a lot. I know you\u2019re dealing with a lot, too, it\u2019s not an excuse, but I just want to tell you how I see it, and how I can make it right. And most of all I want to listen. To what you want to say and to what you need from me. To make it right. We\u2019ve come too far. I\u2019m sorry, call me back, O.K.?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Please feel welcome to leave your comments on the story below.<\/p>\n

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This week’s New Yorker fiction is Ben Lerner’s “The Ferry.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[334,94],"tags":[1447],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-30048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ben-lerner","category-new-yorker-fiction","tag-2023-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/The-Ferry.jpg?fit=690%2C406&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-7OE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30048"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30052,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30048\/revisions\/30052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30048"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}