Like the online pornography its characters are too cheap to pay for (they do presumably pay for the gas to fill up the tanks of their parents hand-me-down Japanese cars-- no, not mere stick-shift Tercels and Civics), a reader might be tempted to peak ahead to the chapters with promising titles-- I'd say, these chapters do not disappoint, and although yes, we are reading the neurotic, anxieties of the relatively affluent and suburban, the book is very engaging. It would be fun to read a review of this book from an unabashedly Zionist perspective. "Self loathing" does come to mind at times although with 3 main characters seemingly not unlike the author, "self liking" could be more accurate. If you need to put yourself in the perfect mood for receiving it, try teaching "Guy De Maupassant" 8 years in a row, then reading the relatively recent biography of Alfred Kazin. Then, skip to the Babel chapter; it's somewhat like TC Boyle's "The Overcoat II" but different. Guaranteed something will touch you with more than just light fingers. You'll throw the book across the lawn, envy and appreciate all at once. Maybe no one reads and reacts with strong emotion anymore? Anyway, I recommend. Funny, intellectual and easy to turn the pages.

What you want to know is whether or not the book is good enough to spend your hard earned wages on. It is. I toyed with the idea of not buying it and just reading it at Border's, but once I got 75 pages into it, I decided it wouldn't be a waste of money. It is not overly high brow like I thought it might be (I harbor a little resentment toward Ivy Leaguers), and even the parts that are crying out for a back slap from Mr. Intellectual don't detract from the book's entertaining qualities. I laughed out loud about three times. And that rarely happens when I read. I enjoyed the interplay of nuances and gross oversimplifications as they related to the characters' personal relationships, but grew a little bored with the obscure historical Russian references that were thrown in here and there. Also, I agree with Gessen on his take of being single in New York and under thirty: it is all about getting drunk and having sex. Whether or not you choose to over intellectualize it.

Let me begin by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this witty and insightful book, because the rest of this is going to be nasty and snarky.
The title is pretty accurate. It is about young literary men. (Characters write for the "Nation" and "New Republic" and aspire to the "New York Review of Books.") But it may be false advertising to call it a novel, rather than a collection of short stories. The stories are about three young men, Sam, Mark and Keith who are all Ivy League graduates with parents who are Jewish immigrants from Russia. There's a lot of interesting background about the Jewish experience in the Soviet Union. Some of it was more interesting than the love affairs that make up the main stories and end sadly or inconclusively.
Keith is a first person narrator who frames the stories, and finishes a political book about Bush. Mark fails to finish a dissertation about the Mensheviks. Sam fails to finish a novel about the Zionist movement. It has a realistic contemporary setting, in Syracuse, Boston, Baltimore and New York, with some scenes in the West Bank. The three protagonists are loosely linked, largely through their mistresses.
I was reminded of the marvelous episode in Aldous Huxley's "Chrome Yellow" written in the 1920's, where a clever and sensitive young man confides to an older critic that he is writing a novel. The older man tells him with "devastating accuracy" exactly what his novel will be about. It will be about a clever and sensitive young man who has a series of love affairs, writes a novel of surpassing brilliance, and "is last seen disappearing into a luminous future." Keith Gessen (the author)is evidently a clever and sensitive young man who is well aware of the clichés of the autobiographical coming-of-age novel and wants to put a new and original spin on them. It is fun watching him try.