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Narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross
Ben PurkertUnabridged — 9 hours, 11 minutes
Narrated by Jonathan Todd Ross
Ben PurkertUnabridged — 9 hours, 11 minutes
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Funny, witty, and incisor-sharp, Purkert nails down the hypocrisies of modern masculinity and capitalism with the graceful hand of a poet. This novel says so much so well about the absurd moment in which we, grudgingly, live.
In this very funny, whip-smart novel, Purkert wields his narrator’s ingenuous derangement like a scalpel, dissecting our current moment with masterful precision.
In his blistering... debut novel, Ben Purkert paints a compelling portrait of the gallingly hubristic and increasingly frustrating Seth Taranoff, an amateur copywriter who treats his burgeoning career as though it were life and death….In Purkert’s hands, Seth... is equal parts funny and pathetic, engendering sympathy and pity from the reader sometimes within the very same sentence. The Men Can’t Be Saved sits right at the intersection where Mad Men ambition meets an epic, existential meltdown.
[The Men Can’t Be Saved] is incredibly pleasurable to read. In a culture of omnipresent toxic masculinity, perhaps there is something cathartic about it. Yet Purkert’s depiction of these men is unsettling, prompting some important questions: What do we do with the toxic men in our own lives? How do we help them help themselves?... The men, in other words, are not alright. Whether or not this is a fixable problem is precisely the question Purkert raises — and it’s up to us to find answers.
Ben Purkert sure knows what he’s doing. One of many novels grappling with the alienating forces of the attention economy, it’s also a cathartic workplace read.
Purkert immerses his reader in the colorful advertising industry while posing questions about masculinity, work culture, and addiction.
A brilliant skewering of modern-day masculinity. Wildly gripping, charmingly funny, bone-hard, and real. Purkert is the kind of writer whose work I’ll follow anywhere.
Ben Purkert is a magician with the pen. This is one of those unique novels that has you laughing on one page and wrestling with some of life’s biggest questions on the next. A phenomenal debut novel.
A laugh-out-loud romp about masculinity, sex, and obsession. This is a hilarious expose about how society views working hard. Purkert cuts deep and his prose leaps off the praise.
A 21st-Century Catcher in the Rye that examines the ‘genius’ worship and toxic masculinity still dominating the advertising world today. [A] muscular novel . . . startlingly funny thanks to an unforgettable narrator [with a] Jupiter-sized ego.
A witty, warm, riotously timely debut of young men (mis)behaving... Philip Roth would have loved this novel.
"A hilarious existential journey."
The Men Can't Be Saved is an experience that transcends the act of reading fiction. It is an indictment, a call to self-examine, and ask questions, but it manages this while still being playful, lighthearted, and generous. What I love most about Purkert's writing—across genres—is that it finds a perfect line between a voice that is confident, but also grounding itself in the realities of uncertain living. That is a gift, and it shines through these pages.
Ben Purkert's The Men Can't Be Saved is a work of wit and timely power. Faith and modernity, capitalism and masculinity, sex and identity—this novel has it all, and gets away with it. The style and the intellect herein mark the coming of a major new talent.
[Purkert's] forebears are the likes of Teddy Wayne, Joshua Ferris, Sam Lipsyte and Gary Shteyngart, all of whom have written brash and funny satires of family, workplaces and masculinity gone off the rails. That crowd of Gen X writers were in turn inspired by the schlemiel-like heroes of Saul Bellow and Philip Roth....[Purkert is] a sharply funny observer of male foibles, 20-something angst, and the modern workplace.
A knockout . . . . Purkert chips away at the ugly, entwined hearts of masculinity and capitalism.
Jonathan Todd Ross's performance captures the growing unreliability of this novel's narrator, while maintaining the story's humor and tragedy. This is no small feat because the audiobook requires this deft, complicated tone throughout its entire running time. Seth is an up-and-coming copywriter until he's let go. He finds work in a coffee shop, discovering the numbing effects of drugs while attempting to sort out what's happened to him, and where the pathway forward might be. Listeners experience moments of true desperation: At one point, Seth borrows a car from a colleague, only to wind up living in it. The performance's tone is crucial, especially when Seth faces a spiritual reckoning. Ross keeps finding the right notes. S.P.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
| BN ID: | 2940159367228 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Recorded Books, LLC |
| Publication date: | 08/01/2023 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
