Ben Lieberman - a novel in the tradition of the nouveau roman and in the tradition of no novel at all. A prison guard at a provincial military brig is compelled to investigate the death of a prisoner he was charged with escorting. At every step, he is harried by the prison's commandant, Major Carruthers, a bureaucrat with his own set of problems, and a coterie of hooligans, small-town grifters, barracks-bound drunks, and of course the fuzz.

 

Ben Lieberman, Filthy Synechdoche, Corona Samizdat, 2022

Filthy Synecdoche is a novel in the tradition of the nouveau roman and in the tradition of no novel at all. A prison guard at a provincial military brig is compelled to investigate the death of a prisoner he was charged with escorting. At every step, he is harried by the prison's commandant, Major Carruthers, a bureaucrat with his own set of problems, and a coterie of hooligans, small-town grifters, barracks-bound drunks, and of course the fuzz. The novel assembles a series of set pieces not at all resembling the life of the author, who was indeed in a military organization not unlike the one portrayed in the story; regrettably (or perhaps not), the author has passed on, and has fulfilled that theoretical challenge to the reader at no cost to them or their loved ones.