Sad young and literary in 1938 and you could at least prove yourself opposing Hitler, sad young and literary in 1968 and you could demonstrate in Grosvenor Square, but what if you had the misfortune to be sad young and literary in 1998? This terrible moment in the history of being young is where 33-year-old Keith Gessen begins his first novel. Mark, Keith and Sam, our three sad young literary men, are just out of college. They gather at the apartment in Queens Mark shares with his girlfriend, Sasha, they temp, go to second-run movies and eight-dollar plays, shop for food at Korean grocers and clothes at the Salvation Army on Spring and Lafayette,

but most of all Mark and Sasha and their friends worried about history and themselves. They read and listened and wrote and argued. . . . But what if they were missing it? What if it was happening, in New York, not a few blocks from them, what if they knew someone to whom it was happening, or who was making it happen - what if they were blind to it? What if it wasn't them?

LRB 22 May 2008 | PDF Download