ALL THE SAD YOUNG LITERARY MEN
by Keith Gessen

Approaching ALL THE SAD YOUNG LITERARY MEN by magical Brooklynite Keith Gessen, like works of actual literature, requires a some context.  The informed reader will bring to this book a knowledge of the literary gang of Dave Eggers, McSweeney's, The Believer; Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Safran Foer, Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon, and all their earnest thrustings towards a new literary movement.  Equally important to this book is Keith Gessen's own extremely exclusive twice-yearly literary magazine, n+1, Keith Gessen's public statements disparaging the Dave Eggers Gang, and Keith Gessen's blog, which (strangely, for a man of his claims) dedicates itself to small, useless ruminations on (no joke!) puppies. 

Pushing all this from our mind, let's approach ALL THE SAD YOUNG LITERARY MEN.  Gessen's narrative, like an economical dinner table, unfolds in sections, following the lives of three protagonists as they fumble impotently through a world of modern technology, halfhearted intellectualism, and feeble romance. 

His lilting, glib style suits both the playfulness of the beginning (he has pictures!  PICTURES! of e-mail inboxes and Presidents whose daughters are included in the story) and then the sweaty, half-erect profundity of the second half (no pictures here).

ALL THE SAD YOUNG LITERARY MEN bravely explores the effect of google on our lives, makes a brave interrogation of the impulse to write The Great Zionist Novel, and with so much bravery really gets in there and explores what it means to have a romantic relationship in a contemporary world.  Keith Gessen doesn't pull any punches as he bravely analyzes the attempts of three young men to find meaning in a tragically post-modern world.
 
Keith Gessen, what are you telling us that we don't already know?  Keith Gessen, when you decided to write this book, what fundamental, sparkling thing that was too large to come out in anything but a novel-length piece of art did you want to express?  Keith Gessen, I have searched the length of your book and failed to find anything you couldn't just as easily have accomplished by jacking off near an open Word document.

There is only one unforgivable crime in the world of art, and that is boring art.  I could have forgiven everything else, certainly, I can see you might be trying for something, and I can sense some teeth there, even behind that smug smile, but really, boring art is irredeemable. 
Don't buy this book.  Buy something by George Saunders, or jeez, I'm even willing to recommend Chabon here.  Just buy something that's really trying to advance the world of literature, not these 242 pages of useless navelgazing.

 --Kenton deAngeli