Subjects

Finished Sam Lipsyte's The Subject Steve earlier this week.  I'd read his novel Home Land a few months earlier, and seen him do a reading at Pete's Candy Store a few months before that.  It would be tempting, at first, to write Lipsyte's work off as cynical/misanthropic dark comedy -- the sort of criticism I have of a lot of Daniel Clowes's work, for instance.  While Lipsyte does put his characters through hell -- the protagonist of The Subject Steve learns that he's dying as the novel begins, and things get worse from there -- the possiblity of some form of redemption always exists.

That said, Lipsyte's work is often darkly funny, and some of the humor is indeed cringeworthy.  Many of his characters exhibit contempt and compassion in equal measure, and his novels can be as emotionally bruising as they are spot-on funny. 

And he knows the Garden State well, which is hard to argue with...