Sam Lipsyte

Now something damp and tentacled was doing a dance in my hair.

"It's your time to shine," said Parish.

He handed me the mop, pointed to a bucket on wheels. The water stank of some chemist's idea of the woods. I mopped the dining hall, tried to picture a New-and-Improved Pine-Scented Forest. Antibacterial spatterdock was just sprouting near a lake of lye when my eyes began to sting. I went to the kitchen to rinse them, found Parish peeling a kiwi.

"Good job," said Parish. "Don't forget to punch out."

He showed me how, dropped a slice of rye into an Eisenhowera-era toaster. We waited for it to pop. There was a corkboard near the door, a spotty hunk of pumpernickel pinned to it.

"The problem," he said, "is that punch bread rots."

"That would be the problem with punch bread."

haha wheres the melody etc

Enjoyed two short stories of his I've read recently, The Dungeon Master in the New Yorker and another one in the Paris Review. Haven't read The Ask or anything else.

The Paris Review story makes it clear (I think) that his dad was Robert Lipsyte, who wrote a book about boxing and heroin that I was assigned to read in 8th grade. This story is about a junkie whose dad wrote about boxing, so he decides to write a young-adult book about Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Very funny.

Can a mod fix the title to Lipsyte?

yeah that dungeon master story was good, i havent read the ask either, just home land, and i liked it ok but it was a lil too 'funny'

some fine selections

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/05/sam-lipsyte-s-book-bag-five-bilious-seriocomic-triumphs.html

love this guy. need to read his new one.

Picked up The Fun Parts yesterday afternoon at the library and was through it a couple hours later. Easily as good as The Ask.

i'm reading it now, amazing stuff

Wow - completely blown away by Venus Drive. this guy rules. fuck any comparisons to Bukowski though

Newest one was pretty fun, even if the "villain" reads a little heavy handed and all too convenient from 2023 but I like the weirdo LES characters.

Any recs on where to start with this guy?

home land is great

i didn't love the new one. he's a great writer but it just has the same thing where writers try to write about rock bands where it never feels authentic. maybe it was supposed to be kind of silly bc the whole book was a bit cartoonish but it didn't work for me. having the main characters' band be called "the shits" was emblematic of that, plus all the band members having "band names" - none of that feels like NYC in the early '90s to me.