A witty, warm, riotously timely debut of young men (mis)behaving... Philip Roth would have loved this novel.
award-winning author of Zero Sum: Stories JOYCE CAROL OATES
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.
In this very funny, whip-smart novel, Purkert wields his narrator’s ingenuous derangement like a scalpel, dissecting our current moment with masterful precision.
author of Mouth to Mouth ANTOINE WILSON
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.
author of Martyr! KAVEH AKBAR
[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.
JEWISH BOOK COUNCIL - Joshua Kruchten
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.
author of A Little Devil in America HANIF ABDURRAQIB
"A hilarious existential journey."
THE MILLIONS - Hilary Leichter
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.
#1 New York Times bestselling author of How the Wo CLINT SMITH
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.
author of Something New Under the Sun ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN
"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."
20 Best Books of 2023 VANITY FAIR
A knockout . . . . Purkert chips away at the ugly, entwined hearts of masculinity and capitalism.
Most Anticipated Books of 2023 THE MILLIONS
[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.
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.
Most Anticipated Summer 2023 Reads LITHUB
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.
author of The Queen of Tuesday DARIN STRAUSS
Purkert immerses his reader in the colorful advertising industry while posing questions about masculinity, work culture, and addiction.
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.
Most Anticipated Books of 2023 DEBUTIFUL
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.—VANITY FAIR, 20 Best Books of 2023 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.”—ESQUIRE WASHINGTON POST THE BOSTON GLOBE KIRKUS REVIEWS PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 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.”—Joshua Kruchten , JEWISH BOOK COUNCIL Hilary Leichter , THE MILLIONS LITHUB, Most Anticipated Summer 2023 Reads THE MILLIONS, Most Anticipated Books of 2023 DEBUTIFUL, Most Anticipated Books of 2023 Clint Smith, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed 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.”—Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Little Devil in America Joyce Carol Oates, award-winning author of Zero Sum: Stories 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.”—Darin Strauss, author of The Queen of Tuesday Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr! Antoine Wilson, author of Mouth to Mouth
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.
author of The Queen of Tuesday Darin Strauss
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.
author of Something New Under the Sun Alexandra Kleeman
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.
author of A Little Devil in America Hanif Abdurraqib
In this very funny, whip-smart novel, Purkert wields his narrator’s ingenuous derangement like a scalpel, dissecting our current moment with masterful precision.
author of Mouth to Mouth Antoine Wilson
A witty, warm, riotously timely debut of young men (mis)behaving... Philip Roth would have loved this novel.
award-winning author of Zero Sum: Stories Joyce Carol Oates
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.
author of Martyr! Kaveh Akbar
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.
#1 New York Times bestselling author of How the Wo Clint Smith
2023-05-09
Poet Purkert’s debut novel brings quite a few ideas to the table—toxic masculinity, the black hole at the center of capitalism, even the wisdom of the Talmud—but it’s the flash and sizzle of his wit that really deliver this bleak cautionary tale. Twenty-something Seth Taranoff is many things, and also not much. Narcissistic, unreliable, addicted to pills, a not-long-ago successful New York junior copywriter (perhaps, he once thought, a wunderkind?) now laid off and working in a coffee shop, he manages to fail in each and every department of his life, systematically, spectacularly, with remarkable self-delusion. After a terrible stretch of long, vacant months, outside the reach of romantic love from the two women in his life—cutthroat copywriter Josie and artistic fellow barista Ramya—stuck in an existential as well as a pharmaceutically induced brain fog, Seth winds up broke, homeless, and despondent in Allentown, Pennsylvania. And, as if that weren’t enough, he realizes that his former co-worker Robert “Moon” McCloone, a man-on-top with the heart of a frat boy, has become his terrible shadow, at times persecutor, for reasons he simply can’t fathom. Is Moon the symbol of what Seth could have been in advertising if only he had fully dispensed with his conscience? Could he mean more to Seth than Seth realizes, or less? Staring into his particular abyss, Seth finally understands why he loved studying deconstruction theory in college: It's easier to pull things apart than to put them together, easier to be faithless and allow yourself to be carried by the tide, to waste your life instead of believing in it. Seth begins to walk a path of suffering that may in time lead him to the green pastures and still waters of self-acceptance. Or something like. For a man still so young, he's so old.
Ironic, plangent, gritty, and, ultimately, spiritual.
