God’s mercy on the Sad Young Literary Man! When Keith Gessen’s debut came out in April—the second book, after Benjamin Kunkel’s Indecision (2005), to emerge from the editorial staff of n+1—it was received less charitably than he’d hoped.[1] Sure, Jonathan Yardley and Joyce Carol Oates praised it; one might think that ample encouragement for a first-time novelist. But just because Grandma finds your sailor suit adorable doesn’t mean you won’t get Indian burns on the playground, and before long the cruelties of the media website Gawker had Gessen crying in the sandbox.

“I think deep down inside,” Gessen told an interviewer, “they know that we’re right. Because we are right. And we will bury them.” For we, read the “generational struggle” Gessen represents. For they, read the critics, whatever t ...

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