Astringently funny yet relatable, Keith Gessen's ""All the Sad Young Literary Men"" follows three highly educated college graduates in their individual quests for careers, women and wisdom at the turn of the 21st century. Keith is a Harvard graduate who has taken up a writing career in New York City, Sam is a Bostonian who is certain he will one day be the author of ""the great Zionist epic,"" and Mark is a graduate student living in Syracuse while writing his dissertation on the Mensheviks. Each grapple with relationships and desired legacies.
Gessen writes with biting wit and rapid-fire cultural and literary references. The title itself is a reference to F. Scott Fitzgerald's ""All the Sad Young Men,"" a collection of short stories published in 1926 exploring the naïveté and foolishness of young men and their expectations. This is not a portrait illustrated in Gessen's first novel, as each character is more or less clear in his anticipations, but the reference literally describes their dispositions as well as reflects the allusive nature of the book.
Each story is unique, but the similarities between them are frequent and intertwined, causing them to blend dangerously close with one another. At times, the melodrama seems to blur together and function interchangeably between the respective stories if not carefully compartmentalized, as if the narrative as a whole could be following one character instead of three. The characters are young, arrogant, and at times whiny, and their actions reflect that. One protagonist is a chronic self-Googler, and two of the three have two girlfriends at once. They are sometimes difficult characters with whom to relate or empathize.
Although the political and social developments described thoroughly by the narration are certainly chaotic—the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Lewinsky scandal and the failures of the Bush administration, to name a few—the novel as a whole is not to be taken completely seriously, and neither are its characters. This is not to say, however, that anything is belittled or that the protagonists' intense feelings are refused. Gessen captures the budding idealism and subsequent disappointment so often found in young adults. The protagonists undergo philosophical dilemmas ranging from the minute to the existential (""Does he who fights douchebags become, inevitably, something of a douchebag? I don't know."") But a sharp wit and sense of humor shines through amid personal darkness through satire, sarcasm, and general absurdity (""Mark looked up from his plate and smiled as if to say: There is no one but you. Celeste smiled back, as if to say: I will cut off your balls."")
Much of the novel is gloomy, reflecting on political failures and reactionary movements. But as it ends in 2008, a newfound optimism graces each story with the seeming promise of change (though not with an annoyingly and overtly political message—the novel was released last April.)
Despite the mottled narration and sometimes pity-seeking characters, ""Literary Men"" is a good read for adults of all ages seeking insight in a convoluted world.
