''All the Sad Young Literary Men'' is the

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

Keith Gessen Keith A. Gessen (born January 9, 1975) is a Russian-born American novelist, journalist, and literary translator. He is co-founder and co-editor of American literary magazine '' n+1'' and an assistant professor of journalism at the Columbia Unive ...

, the founder of the journal '' n+1''. It was published by

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

in April, 2008.

Plot

Gessen's novel centers around the stories of three literary-minded friends: Keith, a

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

-educated writer living in New York City; Sam, living in Boston and writing the "great Zionist epic"; and Mark, who is trying to complete a history dissertation on the

Mensheviks The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries. The factions eme ...

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

Title

The title is derived from F. Scott Fitzgerald's third collection of short stories, '' All the Sad Young Men''. This collection includes two of Fitzgerald's most famous stories about privilege and romance surprised by the chillier realities outside a university's gates, "

Winter Dreams "Winter Dreams" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald that was first published in '' Metropolitan'' magazine in December 1922 and later collected in '' All the Sad Young Men'' in 1926. The plot concerns the attempts by a young man to win the a ...

" and "

The Rich Boy "The Rich Boy" is a short story by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was included in his 1926 collection ''All the Sad Young Men''. "The Rich Boy" originally appeared in two parts, in the January and February 1926 issues of ''Redbook''. In t ...

Reception

In ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'', novelist and critic

Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels '' Bla ...

called the novel "mordantly funny, and frequently poignant," adding "in this debut novel there is much that is charming and beguiling, and much promise." In ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'',

Andrew O'Hagan Andrew O'Hagan (born 1968) is a List of Scottish novelists, Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. Three of his novels have been nominated for the Booker Prize and he has won several awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Award. His m ...

wrote:

"Gessen’s style is good-natured and ripe enough to allow a satisfying sweetness to exist in these characters as they journey around the carnival of their own selfishness. Mark and Sam and Keith may encapsulate a certain generational passion for careers over values, but their adventures here often serve laughingly to set them down among the aging troubles of the world. There must, after all, be a way of life in which literary young men are not enslaved to the sad business of always having to do better than 'the people they went to college with.'”

By contrast ''

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

'' called the novel "self-satisfied" and "boringly

solipsistic Solipsism (; ) is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known an ...

References

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External links

Article about Keith Gessen and ''All the Sad Young Literary Men''
in ''The New York Times'', April 27, 2008 2008 American novels Novels set in New York (state) Syracuse University 2008 debut novels