Ben Purkert's "The Men Can't Be Saved"

By Neha Mulay 


Acclaimed poet Ben Purkert’s recent fiction debut, The Men Can’t Be Saved (The Overlook Press, 2023) is a tragicomic exposition of corporate advertising culture and the absurdities of heightened, hyperreal capitalism. The novel bristles with astuteness and wit, centering an unlikeable/somewhat unreliable narrator to embody the hypocrisy at the heart of the toxic masculinity that so often fuels corporate industries.   

The book’s protagonist, Seth Taranoff, is a junior copywriter working at RazorBeat, an advertising agency. Seth’s main and singular source of professional pride is a commercial for Smackdale All-Absorb Incontinence Men’s Underwear. The commercial, having garnered attention and acclaim, has left Seth infallibly convinced of his own genius and his impending ascension of the corporate ladder. 

Seth mulls about the RazorBeat office in self-conscious embodiment of the sullen prodigy; seeking validation for his taglines, telling clients their brand appeals to no one, noting to himself that sunsets lack originality and imagination, mentally disparaging the partners he works with, and fixating on his affair with RazorBeat coworker, Josie. 

In Seth’s character, Purkert gives us the quintessential figure of the male corporate aficionado, illuminated in clumsy, self-aggrandizing, self-destructive detail. Purkert draws lineage from pivotal writers such as Philip Roth and J.D. Salinger. The book also hearkens to influential television franchises such as Mad Men. Indeed, Purkert notes he began working as a copywriter around the same time Mad Men was released and that he often discussed it with his colleagues. Those familiar with the show likely recall Don Draper, the suave, resplendent, and morally dubious Creative Director who dominates the advertising agency and the show.  

The Men Can't Be Saved is a testament to the reality that lies at the heart of the often-depicted, endlessly fascinating figure of the corporate unicorn. Those familiar with Mad Men will note that the novel examines the reality of quasi-genius corporate stuntmen and the unsustainable realities of this character. But Purkert’s vision takes us beyond the world of advertising, towards explorations of spirituality, change, and the American status quo/modus operandi.  

When Human Resources at RazorBeat urges him to utilize his accrued vacation time, Seth, unable to afford a vacation, embarks on a trip to Israel with Birthright, an organization that encourages Jewish people to connect with their heritage and the Jewish community. While on this trip, Yael, an Israeli working with the organization, observes Seth’s behavior and notes: Americans…You always ask for things.” Indeed, the book functions as a visceral testament to the American altars of consumption and production, the cultural capital that enables and indeed, rewards the flawed grandeur of the male ego. 

Purkert’s writing is stylish, possessing a satirical finesse that dissects the very banal, virulent core of the advertising engine: “A great tagline is more infestation than persuasion. It swarms the mind like a plague of locusts. It means and means and never stops.” 

Purkert plays with the notion of the unlikeable character and imbibes him with an egotistical cluelessness: 

The less I absorbed, the better. Isn’t this true for all creative geniuses? Monet was half blind. Beethoven was mostly deaf. I was completely ignorant.” However, the novel, for all its wrestling with Mad Men-esque tropes, is very evidently set in the present age, where few industries are immune to cost-cutting and layoffs. 

Upon Seth’s return from this trip, he is “exited” from his position at RazorBeat as part of a series of layoffs. In the wake of his job loss, Seth spirals into a heady mixture of delusion, addiction, religion, and romantic obsession. He begins working at pretentious coffee shop Sötma, where he meets his part-time coworker and pained art student, Ramya. Seth’s romantic involvement with Ramya, though idealistic, stems from the same obsessive praxis, a crucial lack of awareness, and reductive chauvinism disguised in savior narratives and admiration. Ironically enough, Seth notes: “I wanted to nurture that talent and protect her from the world and its vast fleet of vile men.”

Indeed, Seth’s character isn’t just unlikeable, it’s also unreliable. Seth frequently alters the facts; he conducts an interview with Josie’s boyfriend under false pretenses, he doesn’t tell his parents about his job loss, and he refers to Ramya as his “fiancé.” Though Seth may not be creating multiple narratives for his reader, we nevertheless become increasingly aware of the multiplicity of truths and the omissions perpetuated by Seth. 

After he is laid off, Seth also develops a somewhat bizarre friendship with the interminable and unbelievably juvenile RazorBeat executive Robert McCloone, nicknamed “Moon,” who Seth asserts “...had nothing to offer the agency, nothing of real value.  He was simply adept at toggling back and forth between multiple accounts.” Seth is derisive of Moon, though their friendship does serve as a source of insight and odd comfort for both characters. 

Seth sets himself apart from men like Moon, but Seth’s narcissism is at the core of his toxicity, and it is the very thing that keeps him believing he is different from other men and prevents him from perceiving situations clearly. When Seth visits a strip club with Moon, he reflects, “My desire to see strippers was less about seeing them, more about seeing myself seeing them.” Seth’s obsession with performance, ventriloquism, and the gaze are perhaps as much indicative of a spiritual chasm as they are evocative of hyperreal capitalism and toxic self-affirmation. 

Seth grapples with his Jewishness, and when he meets Nadav, a Jewish rabbi, we encounter the complexities of the notion of faith. Hilariously, when Seth tries to picture a person without faith, he visualizes “...a person with a gaping hole in the middle. Basically, a bagel.” Of course, the conundrum of belief is central to Seth’s trajectory of unwinding selfhood. As Josie says to Seth, “You wanna know the real difference between you and Moon?” Her gaze bored into me. “You buy into all this…You actually believe in it.” 

Josie further posits, “All brands are lies. Some just happen to be true.” Indeed, the question of truth is central to the delusion of characters like Seth—if the business of ploys and aesthetics becomes a vehicular mode of self-fulfillment, then perhaps a rupture of those very patterns is inevitable. Ultimately, the novel questions notions of authenticity, resonance, and truth—what isn’t hollow at its core? Certainly, the book reveals many of Seth’s experiences and interactions as being based on deception, hoaxes, or illusions.  

Purkert is too skilled a writer to give his characters a clear, self-effacing trajectory of growth or epiphany, though there is certainly a sense of depth that punctuates the latter half of the book. “Frustrated, my mom did research and learned that a healthy wisteria plant is content to keep sending out shoots without flowering. The solution was to shock the vine into bloom by causing it distress.” Indeed, if masculinity is in crisis, then this very crisis could evoke dynamic (if difficult) change.  Or, it could result in one more trip around the bend or up the escalator, leading to a recurrent perpetuation of the same self-destructive patterns. 

If the men cannot be saved, then it is masculinity that is at stake rather than individuals. Masculinity, particularly American masculinity, is tied into the savior complex, so the title of the book is a boorish way of overturning the same pedagogy that has men “saving” women and the world, whilst destroying themselves. When Ramya and Seth discuss a video game, she says, “Maybe she never wanted your help. Maybe she wanted someone else to save her. From you…If only she wasn’t dead…We could ask her.” 

Purkert’s novel is satirical, but it’s also resonant. By creating a character that is evidentiary and reflective of the hypocrisy of toxic masculinity Purkert delivers a much-needed story of masculinity in acute crisis. In interrogating a quintessentially form of American capitalism, Purkert addresses crucial questions of faith, truth, and identity. Of course, if we’re addressing the notion of escaping or transcending said toxicity (in other words, if the men can, indeed, be saved), Purkert, by questioning the metric of the savior itself, expositions the hegemonic enormity of patriarchy and the fabrications it often enables. 

Indeed, as Purkert subtly demonstrates, the notion of redemption under such a system may be as facetious as the system itself—epiphanies, spiritual or otherwise, have a penchant for receding. One is reminded of Mad Men’s Draper himself, who (spoiler alert!), at the end of the season, escapes to a retreat in California, and awakens to the blissful veneered sunkissed, exuberant enslaught of a Coca-Cola advertisement. 

Purkert’s aptly executed character of Seth Taranoff is a maudlin extrapolation of the sort of American hypocrisy that cannot escape itself, though Purkert, by masterfully turning the savior complex on its heels, raises the essential questions of who exactly needs saving, and from whom. Indeed, whilst misogyny continues upon its rampant and cockeyed trajectory, we are blessed to have writers like Purkert illuminating the bromidic and ultimately pitiful terrain of a culture at war with itself.