PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewReaders who come to The Good Hand previously uninterested in moving equipment — which is, well, everyone — will also find a memoir padded in front, bumpy in Smith’s self-portrayal as both a quiet watcher and an \'adrenaline freak\' and short of the redemptive transformation sold by the book’s subtitle ... This, in other words, might be a book that pleases no one ... And yet, after Smith finally starts working in the oil field, in June 2013, the memoir tightens its grip with its depictions of action and men. Smith brings an alchemic talent to describing physical labor, which comes with numb fingers, swinging cranes, precarious footing, damp boots, hooks, chains and extreme cold. He not only writes work scenes with precision but also treats precision itself with reverence: Understanding and doing the job precisely allowed him to triumph over his own softness, ignorance and fear ... With a playwright’s talent for dialogue, storytelling in miniature and staying out of the way, Smith writes dozens of scenes of men moving, joking and endlessly talking — there are few stoics here, or women — in pickups, sublets, job sites and bars ... Smith never excuses what he heard and saw: homophobia, misogyny, racism and not-too-regretful boasting of past crimes. But he doesn’t define the men by that either...By doing so, he refuses to spoon-feed us judgment; his writing keeps people alive in their histories, talents, humor and mistakes ... does not recount catharsis or much transformation. It brings instead perspective, on how people, including Smith, can sometimes rise above their worst selves through unglamorous, demanding, difficult work. That perspective is a morality, and a relief in a world quick to dismiss, quick to divide and quick to believe that American work is now only about collecting data and selling knowledge. And so maybe by writing a book that pleases no one, Smith wrote a book that should be read.
Ben Lerner
RaveThe New York Times Sunday Book ReviewLeaving the Atocha Station is a bildungsroman and meditation and slacker tale fused by a precise, reflective and darkly comic voice … Adam Gordon, a poet, having bluffed his way into a fellowship in Madrid, makes friends, struggles with Spanish, smokes hash, wanders around, writes poetry, doubts poetry and has two low-energy love affairs. But the real action of the novel is interior … Adam Gordon is comically incompetent, getting lost in Spain’s history, language and occasionally its streets. Yet Spaniards react to Gordon’s foolishness with amused mercy … The ultimate product of Gordon’s success is the novel itself. It is also a strengthening poetry that we rarely see but intuitively, like the Spaniards in the novel, admire.
