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From Publishers Weekly
Former Feed editor Lipsyte was one of the young writers to come out of Open City's initial rise in the '90s; his collection of short stories was followed by 2001's The Subject Steve, a kind of condensed Infinite Jest. This second novel is written as a series of insanely baroque, inappropriately intimate letters to a high school alumni newsletter, 20 or so years after graduation. The letters' fictional author, Lewis Miner, aka "Teabag," is clearly lucid enough to know that the letters could never be printed, let alone appreciated by what emerge as his philistine fellow graduates, but he persists anyway. That giddy, passing-itself-off-as-ordinary persistence becomes the point of the novel, which presents lives that continue in the face of crushing, banal and heartbreaking failures. Lewis can barely make his rent payments, is employed writing "FakeFacts" for a cola outfit and is recovering from his fiancée's recent departure. He and his clique of Eastern Valley High leftovers cope as best they can, taunting and analyzing one another unceasingly. The novel climaxes, if it can be called that, at a surreal gathering of former classmates dubbed a Togethering. At every turn, Lipsyte plays on the clichés of the stuck-white-aging-male, though he embellishes them with sharp dialogue. That the novel is an unpleasant, static read is a sign of its uncompromising, mise-en-abyme success.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
If you combined the inspired lunacy of Christopher Moore (The Stupidest Angel [BKL O 1 04]) with the withering humor of David Gates (Jernigan, 1997), you would get Sam Lipsyte. Self-described loser Lewis Miner, class of '89, has been receiving the Eastern Valley High School alumni bulletin. He is appalled at the content: "one unruptured procession of promotions and breeding success, summer cottages and marathons." He decides to send in his own candid if decidedly twisted update. He describes his job compiling historical data for a company newsletter ("suicidal self-loathing lurks behind every coffee break"); his incredibly bitter feelings about his unsuccessful relationships with women; and the great satisfaction, minutely detailed, that he derives from his two hobbies, masturbation and pot smoking. When straitlaced, uptight Stacy Ryson accuses him of being a misanthrope and refuses to publish his update, Lewis strikes back in his own inimitable fashion. Lipsyte's novel is one long, very funny rant that manages to skewer pretentiousness and champion the average male; however, it's not for the faint of heart. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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IT'S CONFESSION TIME, Catamounts. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (40 customer reviews)
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
an american tradition, Dec 13 2005
By J. Mayhew - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Home Land: A Novel (Paperback)
Tracing the genealogy of Sam Lipsyte's 'Homeland' would lead you back eventually to Frederick Exley's 'A Fan's Notes.'The prototypical book concerning middle-aged substance abuse addicts too well-read for their own good; their literateness serving as a kind of gauntlet as they stumble through a world governed by their illiterate, successful, yet somehow more brutish, less sympathetic peerage. Though the format is highly orginal (the book takes the form of notes written to ones high school alumni newsletter) the protagonist certainly is not, as many other reviewers seem to point out. Something that several reviewers seem to ask as well is 'why should I care about such a self-destructive looser?'Well, these are the people that probably put down 'A Fan's Notes,' which, whether they are sympathetic to Exley or not, was one of the best American novels of the second half of the century. So what if the obese, over-read and balding looser is a stock character? Such a figure is an ameican icon. An institution, and increasingly resembles the only remaining enclave of literate amercian male citizenry outside of acadamia.
I hear Lipsyte getting compared to a lot of other cynical contamporaries: Chuck Paulinuk, David Sedaris and others. The difference being that unlike many of these writers Lipyte loves, and is a master of, language. This is some of the most skillful, hilarious, and impressive writing to have come along since 'A Fan's Notes.' those of you that can't appreciate Lipsyte's dark wit, and his epic failure of a protagonist Lewis 'Teabag' Minor, well you can just go order yourself a copy of "Tuesdays with Morrie," or sit down with some Tony Robbins motivational tapes and some decaf coffee. Leave Lipsyte to the big boys. A more accurate comparison would be to Barry Hannah; the only other contemporary writer that comes to mind as possesing an equally masterful, hyperbolic and dark humor.
Why only four stars you may ask? Well, towards the latter half the book begins to loose the format of 'notes to an alumni magazine,' and becomes a bit more of a straight-forward narrative- albeit it an interesting, hilarious narrative. Perhaps this is inevitable given the need for characters to develope more fully. So the book maintains its hilarity, its tone, and its razor sharp language, if not entirely its premise.
19 of 23 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
I wanted to like this..., Feb 28 2005
By Billy Pilgrim - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Home Land: A Novel (Paperback)
I really did. In the (glowing) review I read, it sounded clever and original, and at first, it was, but unfortunately, it quickly ran out of steam. The main character in this book reminded me a lot of Ethan Hawke's character in "Reality Bites", and I didn't like that movie for the same reason I didn't like this book.As any adolescent knows, it's very easy to criticize society and those who play by it's rules. It's a lot harder to turn that criticism into insight. Pointing out how foolish the "norms" are doesn't, in and of itself, make you better than them or make you more profound. And ultimately, that's what annoyed me the most about this book- it ended up playing out like some kind of adolescent fantasy, like "It's cool to have sex and do drugs and hang out with degenerates and have no responsibility". Unfortunately, that sentiment is neither new nor novel, and the author offers no new insight into either that lifestyle or those who choose to live it.
Still, I'm giving this 3 stars. It reads quickly, and there are enough funny scenes scattered through out that it will at least keep you interested and entertained, if not enlightened.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lipsyte Has Arrived, Jan 28 2005
By C. SORRENTINO - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Home Land: A Novel (Paperback)
Sam Lipsyte sees things more clearly than most writers, and he doesn't flinch. What is portrayed by even his admirers as over-the-top satire strikes me as a dead-on adumbration of every value Americans hold dear, every piety we utter, every meaningless counter that marks our status. While the marvelous conceit of this book--letters to a alumni newsletter--has been recognized and applauded, what hasn't really been remarked upon is that in firing off his jeremiads, Lewis Miner's is a voice speaking into a void. There is no wise and simple man in his Connemara clothes waiting for Lewis's epistles. This book is funny, yes: laugh out loud funny. But it is also dark, a blending of the intense and somber tones of VENUS DRIVE with the brighter and more detached comedy of THE SUBJECT STEVE. It is also very wise: Lipsyte posits no solution to the waste he portrays, no utopian ideal to which his book serves as an illustration of its dystopic opposite. Yet Lewis Miner leaves us with hope, he threads his way through the sheer, glittering, noisy, cacophanously glorious surface of Lipsyte's book to find his way to a sort of self-knowledge. Buy the book.
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