Book Review: Readings

Home Land

by Sam Lipsyte

Picador, 229 pp., $13 (paper)

Jesus, Sam Lipsyte's a good writer. Insightful, clever, able to delve deep into his characters and their environments (i.e., us and our worlds) with surgical skill. All of which is what makes his new novel, Home Land, almost a delight to read. Unfortunately, there's his protagonist to deal with: Lewis Miner, a major loser in so many senses of the word, whose vindictively honest dispatches to his high school alumni magazine are what make up this long story.

But who doesn't love, or love observing, a loser? How can we not embrace a character who's so hapless and helpless in the face of common reality, who's less than half a success in almost every endeavor (except for masturbation, and, even there, Lewis is outranked by his own personal imaginary wankmaster, the so-called Kid)? He's an antihero, right? He is – as two introductory blurbs suggest – the new generation's Holden Caulfield. I mean, c'mon, right? No, I'm sorry, the guy's just too pathetic and whiny to identify with, even for your reviewer, who's not always as far from that mark as he'd prefer to be. Lewis is just a shade too much of a grating schmuck to enjoy reading the exploits of for the length of a novel, unless it's your job to review the book. Which is a shame, because the ending to which this whine festival slowly builds is a twisted comic masterpiece of high-school-reunion-depicting that you'd probably enjoy the hell out of. And, if you don't read the book, you'll also miss bits like this: "You know how that squidlike placenta flops out of a woman after her baby is born, all purple and weird? Wouldn't it be better if, instead of a mutilated infant octopus, a perfect round of sourdough bread slid out?"

See? Lipsyte. Goddamn. So you might want to try his earlier books – The Subject Steve or Venus Drive – instead.