Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Transcription,' by Ben Lerner

Ben Lerner’s slender new novel, “Transcription,” is just 130 pages long, yet it cracks open some of our most colossal and enduring philosophical questions. The novel is told in three parts. We open with an unnamed narrator going to interview his mentor, Thomas — an acclaimed artist in his 90s who also happens to be the father of one of the narrator’s friends, Max — for a magazine. Before the interview, however, the narrator’s phone breaks and he has no way to record their conversation. Rather than reschedule, he proceeds with the interview and only pretends to record Thomas as they...