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For the Love of Sam Lipsyte: a Review of |
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I love Sam Lipsyte. I have loved Sam Lipsyte since I first saw him and read him. I loved Sam Lipsyte long before Jeffrey Eugenides said, "Sam Lipsyte is original, devious, and very funny." And I laughed out loud at things Sam Lipsyte said and wrote long before Chuck Palahniuk said, "I laughed out loud -- and I never laugh loud" about Sam Lipsyte's second book, The Subject Steve. If Sam Lipsyte weren't already married and having a baby, then I would marry him and have his baby. I would let him use my spit and blood for ink if he ran out of things to write with. I would let him write on my bleached skin if he ran out of paper. But, luckily, Flamingo in the UK and Picador in the US have used a bunch of their paper and their ink and printed up a bunch of copies of Home Land. All you have to do is give them some other paper with ink on it (or its equivalent in plastic) and you can have your own copy of Home Land. Everybody should have their own copy of Home Land. One day, mothers and fathers will read to their children from The Collected Works of Sam Lipsyte in front of a fireplace in the evenings. And all of this will happen not just because Sam Lipsyte's phrasing is amazing and he writes great sentences, not just because he is every kind of funny you can think of, not just because he is smart and heartbreaking too, not just because we all also will fail like Lewis "Teabag" Miner fails, not just because there is a piece in Home Land on eating eggs in a diner that will make you rethink eating eggs in diners, not just because Sam Lipsyte willfully disregards a traditional sense of plot and character development while creating a great narrative that has so much force you will have to call in sick to work after reading it, not just because you didn't fit in in high school either, not just because his fictional truths will make you uncomfortable, but also because Sam Lipsyte's "work is impossible to dislike." I knew that before Nadine O'Regan said it too.
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