A funny, sad, off-kilter collection of stories from a rising American star of satire. 'People like to call them ashes but it feels more like a couple of rocks, especially if you hold the whole thing in your hands, or swing it, as I do, on occasion, bolo-style from the sack cord. I'm still not sure why I do this, but it feels good, standing there in the dining room, windmilling my mother around.' From the peep palaces of Times Square to the cubicles of corporate America, 'Venus Drive' takes us away from the toothpaste-white gleam of American life, and leads us down an altogether darker, comic road on the seedy side of town. Pot-dazed revolutionaries, summer-camp sadists, and babysitters with an eye for erotic humiliation all make themselves known in this crafty, streetwise new collection from the acclaimed author of 'The Subject Steve'. At once shocking, inventive and funny, these stories confirm Sam Lipsyte's place amongst the very brightest - and darkest - talents of American fiction.

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.

'A pure joy to read' the Guardian

'...a dastardly hysterical take on modern day rhetoric and the eternal ridiculousness of it all. More than a 'must read,' Hark is a 'must believe!'' Paul Beatty, author of The Sellout

'Madcap and full of love, laughter and unexpected beauty (not to mention the world's greatest bone marrow smuggling scheme), if Hark doesn't make you stalk Sam Lipsyte and try to break up his marriage, then you are not human.' Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story

'The world needed more Sam Lipsyte and Lipsyte, knowing this, perhaps, has given us Hark. It's a stellar work by a great satirist, an uncanny observer, a keen stylist, a truly fine and thrilling writer.' Patrick deWitt, author of The Sisters Brothers

In an America convulsed by political upheaval, cultural discord, environmental collapse and spiritual confusion, many folks are searching for peace, salvation, and - perhaps most immediately - just a little damn focus.

Enter Hark Morner, an unwitting guru whose technique of "Mental Archery" - a combination of mindfulness, mythology, fake history, yoga, and, well, archery - is set to captivate the masses and raise him to near-messiah status. It's a role he never asked for, and one he is woefully underprepared to take on. But his inner-circle of modern pilgrims have other plans, as do some suddenly powerful fringe players, including a renegade Ivy League ethicist, a gentle Swedish kidnapper, a crossbow-hunting veteran of jungle drug wars, a social media tycoon with an empire on the skids, and a mysteriously influential (but undeniably slimy) catfish.

In this social satire of the highest order, Sam Lipsyte, author of the bestselling novel The Ask and master of the form, reaches new peaks of daring in a novel that revels in contemporary absurdity and the wild poetry of everyday language while exploring the emotional truths of his characters - men, women and children seeking meaning and dignity in a chaotic, ridiculous and often dangerous world.

Welcome to the most twisted high-school reunion imaginable, from a rising star of American satire. 'It's confession time, fellow alumni. Ever since Principal Fontana found me and commenced to bless my mail slot, monthly, with the Eastern Valley High School Alumni Newsletter, I've been meaning to pen my update. Sad to say, vanity slowed my hand. Let a fever for the truth speed it now. Let me stand on the rooftop of my reckoning and shout naught but the indisputable: I did not pan out.' The Eastern Valley High School alumni newsletter, 'Catamount Notes', is bursting with tales of success: we've got a bankable politician and a famous baseball star, not to mention a major label recording artist. And then there is the appalling, somewhat bitter and yet entirely loveable Lewis Miner, class of '89 - who did not pan out. From perhaps the most gifted of the younger generation of US satirical novelists, 'Home Land' is a marvel of playful prose and sustained invention - and very, very funny.

'"An all-American tale made up of smart deliveries and cracking ideas…reminiscent of Douglas Coupland or 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius."''
'Observer'

Steve's fettle is absolutely fine, but nevertheless, he's dying – of a mystery disease that just might be boredom. At least, that's what the guys in the white coats say. They're not doctors, they're just guys in white coats, and the subject's name isn't Steve, either, but we'll get to that…

"I laughed out loud – and I never laugh out loud"
CHUCK PALAHNIUK, author of 'Fight Club'

"An original voice: smart, savvy, intensely funny"
'TLS'

"The best thing since George Saunders last broke cover…Kind if Beckett meets 'Six Feet Under', comedy doesn't come much blacker than this."
'Uncut'

"Rowdy, shocking and lyrical…very funny"
'New Yorker'

"Dark, lancing humour, first-rate satire and writing that dares to be bold and edgy."
'San Francisco Chronicle'

"Laugh-out-loud funny…By turns strange, disturbing and hilarious."
'Irish Independent'

Meet Steve (not his real name), a Special Case, in truth a Terminal Case, and the eponymous antihero of Sam Lipsyte's first novel. Steve has been informed by two doctors that he is dying of a condition of unquestioned fatality, with no discernible physical cause. Eager for fame, and to brand the new plague, they dub it Goldfarb-Blackstone Preparatory Extinction Syndrome, or PREXIS for short. Turns out, though, Steve's just dying of boredom. "The Subject Steve" is a dazzling debut--by turns manic, ebullient, and exquisitely deadpan--Sam Lipsyte is in company with the master American satirists.

A "New York Times" Bestseller
A" New York Times Book Review "Editors' Choice
Milo Burke--husband, father, development officer at a third-tier university--has just joined the burgeoning class of the newly unemployed. Grasping after odd jobs to support his wife and child, Milo is relieved to get another chance from his former boss. All he has to do is reel in a potential donor who, mysteriously, has requested Milo's involvement. Exploring such themes as work, war, sex, class, child rearing, romantic comedies, Benjamin Franklin, cooking shows on death row, and the eroticization of chicken wire, "The Ask "is a hilarious tour de force from a writer who has already shown that the deepest fictions are often the funniest.

From the peep palaces of Times Square to the cubicles of corporate America, Sam Lipsyte's stories wander a dark, comic road full of need and regret. His damaged, searching narrators deliver their reports of addiction, lust, loneliness, grief, and the doomed dream of rock 'n' roll with a sly lyricism and eerie spareness that somehow redeem them. Listen to this chorus of gallows humor and goodwill sometimes gone bad and hear wild voices rise out of the din of city living: Gary is a failed punk icon turned petty drug dealer and amateur self-actualization guru; the Chersky girl makes a strange midnight discovery roller-skating through a Depression-era morgue. Pot-dazed Trotskyists, summercamp sadists, and babysitters with an eye toward erotic humiliation also make themselves known in the lost, shattered landscapes of Lipsyte's fictions. "When you have an old soul like I do", deadpans one hero, "everything gets old really quick. Nothing is new. An avocado, a glass of beer, everything tastes like it's been sitting out on a table too long". These stories, loosely linked in character and setting, recall the stark realism of Denis Johnson and the wild humor of Barry Hannah. In these poignant, sharpwitted tales, Sam Lipsyte proves himself one of today's most visceral and fearless short-story writers.

What if somebody finally wrote to his high school alumni bulletin and told...the truth! Here is an update from hell, and the most brilliant work to date, by the novelist whom Jeffrey Eugenides calls "original, devious, and very funny" and of whose first novel Chuck Palahniuk wrote, "I laughed out loud---and I never laugh out loud."
The Eastern Valley High School Alumni newsletter, Catamount Notes, is bursting with tales of success: former students include a bankable politician and a famous baseball star, not to mention a major-label recording artist. Then there is the appalling, yet utterly lovable, Lewis Miner, class of '89---a.k.a Teabag---who did not pan out. This is his confession in all its bitter, lovelorn glory.