Sam LipsyteRezensionen

Black, black humor. Can't wait to get home and read more.

I figured this would be a good one to read right before my high school reunion, right? The premise is a loser-ish guy (nicknamed "Teabag" from a gross locker room incident) writing really literary, intense "updates" to his high school alumni bulletin. The writing is just awesomely smart and funny, but also dark and weird. There is very little plot holding the book together, but it all culminates in one sick, strange high school reunion or "Togethering," as it's called.

Things that stick out in my mind from this book: Lewis AKA Teabag has a recurring dream about a champion masturbation artist. Lewis' best friend Gary lives on money from suing his therapist for making him think his parents molested him as a child. The former high school principal, Fontana, has bondage-type sex with a woman whose husband is trying to kill him with a mace. The mace-toting husband is also a drug dealer and Gary's AA sponsor. Lewis' ex-girlfriend is in love with her film star brother. Lewis earns his meager living writing fake facts for a cola industry journal.

If I had to subtitle this book, I think "The American Nightmare" might work.

This is the first time I’ve read Lipsyte so I was not prepared for the number of flaws his characters have. Usually, a flawed character makes a story more realistic but in the book ‘The Fun Parts’ I feel like his characters are just a little too flawed and I kept wondering why these characters are able to stay in a normal society and wondering why they weren’t just locked up in an institution. It was because of this that I found the book hard to read and I had to struggle through just to finish. I actually started reading this as soon as I’ve gotten but just took me just until this month to actually finish

This does not mean the book was a complete disaster as I did actually enjoy the first couple of stories. The first three stores; ‘The Climber Room’, ‘The Dungeon Master’ and ‘The Deniers’ were very good and I found myself wishing for longer stories with these characters. I feel most of the stories started abruptly and also ended abruptly and I was left slightly confused on some of them.
This book will not be on my bookshelf very long and I think I will be donating it to the local library.

Starts with some very sad, but brilliant short stories. Then it moves to the very funny stuff. The story about the male doula may be the funniest short story I have ever read.

My favorite book for years.

Meh. I had high hopes for this book, but it felt insubstantial as I approached the end. It was funny, but that's all it was. Every time it approached real emotion, the narrator veered off into crudity. Strangely, in its plea for attention by saying the unsayable, Lipsyte's book reminded me of another book I read this year, L.A. Rex, which was not funny at all, but rather over-the-top violent. The other thing these books resemble is, I think, pornography. Maybe that's taking it too far. Lipsyte is obviously talented, but he seems not to trust in his own talent.

Snarky, irreverent, and absurdist best describes this tale of an unwitting guru, Hark, who becomes known and admired for his meaningless message instructing people to "focus". However, the book really isn't about Hark, but rather about the acolytes that latch onto him and his mental archery methodology. The book's tension mostly comes from the various attempts to monetize and use Hark for profit. But oddly,I found the book to be neither plot driven nor truly character driven, but more of a comedic stand up set in book form. There are elements of plot (mostly in the latter third) and stabs at character development, but what stands out are Lipsyte's skewering of everything from foodies to marriage to therapy to yoga to social justice to technocrats to child rearing to religion; little in today's society goes unscathed. And the characters are weird, but all basically losers or money hungry villians.

There are some truly funny moments in this book, especially in the dialogue. Truth be told, I'm probably not the very best audience for satire (I really couldn't bear The Sellout and that won the Man Booker), but this book amused me in a Monty Pythonesque way. If you like black humor and a sarcastic edge to your entertainments, it is definitely worth giving a try.

I have enjoyed Sam Lipsyte's previous books because he writes funny, inventive, and clever prose. This book follows along and is mostly comic but has a good take on the time(1993). Jonathan Liptak(alias Jack Shit) is a 24 year old bass player in a band called the Shits. He is from New Jersey and is living in the lower east side. The plot surrounds the lead singer, the Earl, who has gone missing along with Jack's prized bass. What follows is Jack and a cast of colorful characters trying to find the Earl. Along the way the plot gets into the music scene, the powerful versus the have nots, and the times. We even have the use of Donald Trump(the corrupt non bill paying version) introduced into the book. Lots of cultural references from the 70s on and for those of a certain age, this will bring you back. Anyone who loves music should read this book. Hey, he makes a referee to the MC5 and if you know who that is then read this book. Only 220 pages so not a large time investment. If you like this then check out Lipsyte's other books. Very good.

When I look back on the different versions of myself I was at age 15, 20, 25, my risk-taking years, the risks I took look unnerving, exhilarating, and stupid. I don't think my risk-taking was particular more dangerous than that of other young primates. I did like climbing up the outsides of multi-story buildings, lowering myself out of windows on sheets tied together ("in case I'm ever in prison"), and occasionally cross-dressing and going to punk clubs with friends.

This brief look back is a digressive way of opening my review, but the point is that a huge proportion of us primates seem to want (need?) to take risks—and, of course, we do that at a time when we're not really capable of clearly seeing the risks of those risks. I give thanks regularly that I've never had children, so I don't have to watch then doing the idiotic things I did a) because they're idiotic and b) because, as a matter of fact, not everyone makes it safely to the other side of those risk-taking years. It's a crap-shoot.

No One Left to Come Looking for You, by Sam Lipsyte, features a group of young, mostly just-out-of-college young people living in SoHo in 1993, the year Bill Clinton was inaugurated for his first term as President. They have fall-back options—parents in New Jersey or the midwest most significantly. But what they're doing in New York is trying to live out their dreams of being true punk rockers in what is becoming a post-punk world. They're quite smart (college degrees), but also stupid as all get-out (pumping up the endorphins by throwing themselves heroically into all sorts of risk-taking). In other words, they're typical of a significant proportion of the population of early 90s twenty-somethings.

I'm taking time with this set-up because what stood out for me in this novel wasn't the plot—though there's quite a good one involving a stolen bass, a singer at risk of OD-ing, a gig that may or may not get pulled off, a body guard/thug of Donald Trump's doing some "fixing" that may involve these young people. The plot is just fine. It works well. It keeps things moving. But the real momentum in this novel comes from who the central characters are and the particular point in their lives they are at when we get to observe then, thanks to Lipsyte. The energy, engagement, contradictions and cognitive dissonance that this crew brings with them is so monumental and draws readers' attention so compellingly that the plot is really a sort of very good bonus item.

Depending on who who are—parent/non-parent, young/old, bi-coastal/central, a survivor of the risk-taking years/someone who feels powerless in the face of the risk-taking being chosen by those around them, disciple of punk/or mainstream rocker—you will love or hate this book. And any member of any of those pairings could wind up on either side of the like/dislike line. When you're ready to speed up and run a motorcycle over railroad tracks (or whatever your equivalent of that is), this book will give you a good ride without any risks taken except, perhaps, the risk of a reading light falling on your head.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus; the opinions are my own.

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A darkly comic mystery by the author of Hark and The Ask set in the vibrant music scene of early 1990s New York City.

Manhattan’s East Village, 1993. Dive bars, DIY music venues, shady weirdos, and hard drugs are plentiful. Crime is high but rent is low, luring hopeful, creative kids from sleepy suburbs around the country.

One of these is Jack S., a young New Jersey rock musician. Just a few days before his band’s biggest gig, their lead singer goes missing with Jack’s prized bass, presumably to hock it to feed his junk habit. Jack’s search for his buddy uncovers a sinister entanglement of crimes tied to local real estate barons looking to remake New York City—and who might also be connected to the recent death of Jack’s punk rock mentor. Along the way, Jack encounters a cast of colorful characters, including a bewitching, quick-witted scenester who favors dressing in a nurse’s outfit, a monstrous hired killer with a devotion to both figure skating and edged weapons, a deranged if prophetic postwar novelist, and a tough-talking cop who fancies himself a retro-cool icon of the homicide squad but is harboring a surprising secret.

No One Left to Come Looking for You is a page-turning suspense novel that also serves as a love letter to a bygone era of New York City where young artists could still afford to chase their dreams.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Coming home to my era of Manhattan living in this story was a pleasure. It has Author Lipsyte's requisite snarky, biting wit. It felt like I was back in the after-hours club post-Save the Robots listening to the coke-fueled motormouthing. Oh my...I've said too much.

But it's true, this is the way it felt, and looked, and even smelled.

What I think makes this a good read, then, is its way of being in harmony with my own memories. It's an evocation of a vanished time and place. So how will it hit someone whose memories aren't like mine?

Right on the funny bone.

Later, we go get a drink at the Jew-Hater's bar.

The merry old pogromist, with his lovely shock of alabaster hair and craggy fascist visage, pours us free shots with our beers. Maybe he means to lubricate his audience.

"The Yids, they cut the penis," he says, casual, as though relaying news of an off-season baseball trade. ... "God makes people perfect. The penis, perfect. Why cut it up? Only the Yid thinks of that."

The bland face of evil, played for a few yuks...if you're going to work as this book's audience, you'll need to see that as humor. Offensive and crass and humorous.

Otherwise this isn't a story I think you'll get into. And you'll need to want to get into it...the blizzard at the end of the book needs to feel like we felt then, a suspended moment of possibility, a confusing intersection of many corners all hidden behind drifts and shockingly cold winds forcing your face away from the way you started out wanting to go. That moment in the narrator's life was one where there were many ways to go. He went too far away from the one he thought he wanted and it took a blizzard to show him where he had to be.

Author Lipsyte won't be going back to the days of wine and roses, as the old saying has it; he's fifty-four now, and this story just couldn't come from anyone not fifty-four. My viewpoint, ten years ahead of him, was different enough to make this fun trip to a time I loved familiar enough. I wouldn't have seen it from this angle but it was still speaking to me.

Over forty-five? Give this a read today. What else is that gift card for if not to try to time travel?½

Slight, disappointing (this author used to be much better), and not recommended.½

No One Left to Come Looking for You tells the story of Jack S**t, a struggling musician living in New York in 1993. Jack is trying to track down his bass guitar (along with his band's lead singer), and he runs into a fascinating cast of characters while trying to track them down.

The book exhibits Sam Lipsyte's trademark humor and does a great job of putting us into a bygone world of 1990s-era New York. Definitely a fun read!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Jack is a young Jersey musician living in Manhattan’s East Village in 1993. His band, The Shits, is days away from their biggest gig when their lead singer goes missing, taking Jack’s bass with him (probably to pay for some smack). Jack’s search for his buddy and his bass takes him across NYC as a wave of crimes hits that seem to point to local real estate barons. He meanders across the city to stop for clever banter with a colorful cast of characters.
This is described as “a page-turning suspense novel” - I gotta say it’s nothing like that. Instead, it’s nostalgia for an NYC that no longer exists with some oddball characters trying to be clever.
While amusing at times, there wasn’t a real plot or emotional investment here. A shitty band could afford to chase their dreams and a smack habit in the 90s and the characters are surface level, only there to add some colorful/witty dialogue. Meh.

In Sam Lipsyte’s novel No One Left to Come Looking for You, main character Jack S. personifies what has lately been called “slacker culture.” An aging musician and sporadic employee of various low-wage jobs, Jack wears his lack of ambition like a badge. His banal existence is shaken when he discovers that his best friend and roommate has gone missing, absconding with his bass guitar. Jack is set on a journey of the grimy underworld as he seeks to recover his cherished property and lost bandmate. He moves easily among the downtrodden until he is detected by a vast crime syndicate that does not appreciate his efforts. Lipsyte unabashedly names some of the villains after real people well-known for their New York City connections. The central mystery unspools as Jack evades his pursuers, hoping to return to his comfortable low-key existence. No One Left to Come Looking for You glamorizes the “loser lifestyle” as an alternative to striving corruption and selling out. Many of the characters are one-dimensional markers in service of the plot, and the nicknames the author lends to them are a bit juvenile. Despite these minor issues, the story is well-paced, funny, and overall entertaining. Fans of the movie The Big Lebowski (1998, Gramercy) would enjoy this book and would likely chuckle at its parallels.

Hilarious. Loved all the stuff involving the narrator's young son and his preschool

This is the first time I’ve read Lipsyte so I was not prepared for the number of flaws his characters have. Usually, a flawed character makes a story more realistic but in the book ‘The Fun Parts’ I feel like his characters are just a little too flawed and I kept wondering why these characters are able to stay in a normal society and wondering why they weren’t just locked up in an institution. It was because of this that I found the book hard to read and I had to struggle through just to finish. I actually started reading this as soon as I’ve gotten but just took me just until this month to actually finish

This does not mean the book was a complete disaster as I did actually enjoy the first couple of stories. The first three stores; ‘The Climber Room’, ‘The Dungeon Master’ and ‘The Deniers’ were very good and I found myself wishing for longer stories with these characters. I feel most of the stories started abruptly and also ended abruptly and I was left slightly confused on some of them.
This book will not be on my bookshelf very long and I think I will be donating it to the local library.

Intelligent semi-misfit high school graduate trying to figure out what he wants to do with life. Not much especially remarkable besides writing for publication brutally truthful but never published letters for his school newsletter in complaint about school and life, and also about other alumni, school friends and himself. I got ⅔ through the book. Written fairly well, lots of dialogue, very good collegiate wit, entertaining for a while.

I did skip ahead for the "Togethering", about page 194 (of 229 in my book), an all-classes reunion, maybe pound for pound the best part of the book, if moderately surreal. Added ¾ of a star.

Archiv.org has this for free.

Most artists would be sorry to hear that their work looked like a steaming plate of poop, but not Paul McCarthy. Because that's exactly what he's drawn. In a woodbound portfolio scribbled and annotated ("finger," "smeel my assh hul hole") in what looks like the handwriting of a teenage boy, everything that isn't scatological is phallic or violent. Photographs, including documentation of his sculptures, raise the production values and (sometimes) lower the NC-17 rating. And his commentaries on the work clarify his intentions: if Disney-esque model dwarves are "emissaries from multinational conglomerates come to colonize our dreams," McCarthy's mission must be, in part, recovering those dreams and restoring the taboo to our minds. Mission accomplished. McCarthy, born in Salt Lake City in 1945 and a longtime resident of Los Angeles, has had recent major solo shows at Stockholm's Moderna Museet, New York's New Museum and the Tate Modern in London.

Hark is the name of a new age guru who preaches mental archery to corporate groups, a motivational speaker which a message about how focusing can change your life. He is charismatic enough but his popularity seems to be in spite of his own belief in himself. He has an entourage of friends/promoters who set up gigs and update his main website. The main one, Fraz, is your typical Lipsyte character, "underemployed, middle-aged New York Jewish protagonists with abandoned artistic dreams, cheating wives and snack-food obsessions."(NYT)
I enjoyed the writing and the ideas especially in the first half of the novel. The banter and irony remind me of Joseph Heller. This novel is like a Catch 22 of slightly distant future. However, I feel like the ending meandered into too many arteries: world at war, the president dead, -still funny but it's vision a bit frayed. But, like I said, sometimes a good observation about the inane direction of the world made the reading worth it.½

A WMFU novel before anyone seemed to catch on that there were so many of them. But Mr. Lipsyte has some writing chops and fun turns of phrase to make a WMFU novel SLIGHTLY worthwhile. I don't feel the need to read many of them. But some great lines here redeem the misery a bit. This one almost won the second Morning News Tournament of Books in 2006 (https://themorningnews.org/tob/2006/ ), after two heavyweight historical books took first and second place in the previous year... I can't help but think that the Tournament was looking for something lighter after that. Maybe this type of book was a newer concept then? But then it is very similar to something like 'The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao' by Junot Diaz that won the Tournament in 2008. Mr. Lipsyte has some writing skills, which I wish he would put to better use than some raunchy jokes where a man is constantly discussing his past classmates, trying to send updates to the class newsletter. I feel like Lewis uses his lewdness to hide his vulnerability, much like Oscar is obsessed with every female during his Brief Wondrous Life. But I know nothing about Lipsyte's other books... are most of his books like this? Is this Lipsyte and not Lewis? I'm usually a fan of unlikable characters, and I really try here with Lewis, as I try to be forgiving with any character, but no matter how good Lipsyte is at flipping sentences upside down, I just wanted Lewis to get out of his crappy haunting town and find some happiness somewhere. I do like the parts between Lewis and his dad, which I don't think is an accident considering Lipsyte dedicated the book to his dad. Lewis isn't the worst - but he also didn't walk months through an actual warzone like Zebra did in Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi's 'Call Me Zebra' (which I don't know if that is a good or bad metric to follow -it's a rough road- I'm just surprised no one else ever gets Zebra). To compare to another Tournament winner - the incomparable 'The Sellout' by Paul Beatty - Bon Bon goes through a crap ton in his life, but his heart is gold gold gold. And of course the humor is on point there. But I also haven't walked in the shoes of Lewis - so who am I to judge? As much as he thought it was funny to bus tables at his high school reunion at his dad's banquet hall. It's like he wants to be immersed in it all the time, even if it makes him miserable. And it doesn't take a reunion for him to be dwelling on the past. He insists that none of the lives of his classmates are that great either. He sees this. So why does it bug you so much, Lewis?Just get out of there. I know it's hard, Lewis!

A dark, modern comedy with ruined-relationship ends strewn through old friendships and fiendish colleagues, Milo Burke goes through life in a seemingly endless game where he's suddenly rehired at his old job, specifically to successfully lure a big donation from an old friend.

Lipsyte's second most-used weapon is using the protagonist as a simple prop to display interesting characters and milieus, but his forté is wordplay; sometimes, he seems to me a bit like an old man trying to play younger than he really is:

He was the kind of man you could picture barking into a field phone, sending thousands to slaughter, or perhaps ordering the mass dozing of homes. People often called him War Crimes. By people, I mean Horace and I. By often, I mean twice.

Other times, he mashes words into something new:

"I mean," I said now, "I used to know him." "Well, that's just swell," said Cooley, rose, petted his mustache with a kind of cunnidigital ardor.

Yet, when at his seemingly least lucid, he conjures up magnificent sentences using quite a few words:

I felt as though I were snorting cocaine, or rappelling down a cliffside, or cliffsurfing off a cliff of pure cocaine.

Lipsyte's writings about Milo's connection to his child and his estranged wife range from so-so to excellent; diamonds are found in the rough.

The same goes for Milo's connection with his old friend Purdy, the former school-mate who made a fortune in IT.

All in all, the humor is tight and the flow is good. It's a recommendable book which needed more editing.

I'm just not really alright with satire. It bores me.

I have read a few books by Sam Lypsyte. He is a very talented satirical writer with funny and keen observations about our culture etc. Hark is about a guru and those that follow him. It is a good send off on all of the various issues that are going on in our world. The plot is all over the place but what makes this a worthwhile read is the high level of the writing. Lypsyte is very creative and funny. I can read him just for his hilarious and creative prose. If you have never read him before then I suggest you start with his novel "The Ask". If you enjoy that then you will like all of his stuff.½

This was a difficult, if well-written, book to listen to. The eloquent use of language created a smart satire, although I found its angry sarcasm hard to take in such a large quantity. The plot, about a man trying desperately to find some sense of meaning in the contemporary, urban world, portrayed a painfully demanding and soul-sucking life. The only character which brought some relief was the protagonist's son, young Bernie. Tough read!

The humor in this book is as dark as it comes, and the writing is delightfully nasty. Centered around Milo Burke, a married office drone with a 3-year-old son, the title of the book comes from asking donors for money to support the "Mediocre College at New York City", where Milo toils each day. Hysterical, captivating story of a guy who works in fundraising at a college. His travails losing his job, getting together with college friends, and trying to raise money from one of them to keep his job.