An “extremely funny...brilliantly alive” (The New York Times Book Review) social satire of the highest order from bestselling author Sam Lipsyte, centered around an unwitting mindfulness guru and the phenomenon he initiates.In an America convulsed by political upheaval, cultural discord, environmental catastrophe, and spiritual confusion, so many of us find ourselves anxious and distracted, searching desperately for peace, salvation, and—p...

With scabrous zeal and surpassing empathy, Sam Lipsyte returns to explore the anxieties and indignities of a culture in thrall to an artificially intelligent fever dreamWyatt Sardo, washed-up veteran of the last high-flying days of the glossy magazines, has some things he needs to convey to his teenage children. From hiding.Written in the form of a letter meant to give a full accounting of his violent acts with something called the Planning Committee, A Nihilist’s Guide...

**Classic short stories by a beloved virtuoso of language, craft, and madness from the American South“His writing was anarchic and wonderfully funny. He sounded like what you’d get if you stirred three heaping teaspoons of Thomas Pynchon and Terry Southern into a jar of Eudora Welty.”—Dwight Garner, The New York TimesA Penguin Classic**In the eight stories collected in Captain Maximus, Barry Hannah explores the lives of everymen and eccentrics alik...

In this dark comic novel by the author of Home Land, a college development officer's last chance to keep his job comes at a high cost.A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceMilo Burke—husband, father, development officer at a third-tier university—has just joined the burgeoning class of the newly unemployed. Grasping after off jobs to support his wife and child, Milo is relieved to get another chance from his former boss. All he has to...

An all-access ticket to the celebrated and wholly original mind of Mark Leyner, “one of the smartest and funniest humans since Aristophanes” (Jay McInerney)Praised as “chaotic and vibrant” (Charles Yu), “visionary” (Sam Lipsyte), and “supremely original” (John Cusack), the work of Mark Leyner has inspired a generation of contemporary novelists and has long deserved its place of recognition among the literary superstars of the seismic postmodernism-influenced moveme...

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 sin...

What if somebody finally wrote to his high school alumni bulletin and told...the truth! Home Land is a brilliant work from novelist Sam Lipsyte, 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...

An intense, mordantly funny collection of short fiction from Sam Lipsyte, author of Home Land and The Ask.The Picador paperback edition includes an excerpt from The Ask.A man with an "old soul" finds himself at a Times Square peep show, looking for more than just a little action. A young man goes into some serious regression after finding his deceased mother's stash of morphine. A group of summer-camp sad...

The Fun Parts is Sam Lipsyte at his very best—a far-ranging exploration of new voices and vistas from "the most consistently funny fiction writer working today" ( Time).A boy eats his way to self-discovery, while another must battle the reality-brandishing monster preying on his fantasy realm. Elsewhere, an aerobics instructor—the daughter of a Holocaust survivor—makes the most shocking leap imaginable to save her soul. These are just a few of the...

The dazzling debut novel from the author of The Ask and Home Land, Sam Lipsyte's The Subject Steve is by turns manic, ebullient, and exquisitely deadpan—and belongs in the company with the master American satirists.Meet Steve (not his real name), a Special Case, in truth, a Terminal Case, and the eponymous antihero of Lipsyte's first novel. Steve has been informed by two doctors that he is dying of a condition of unquestioned fatality, w...

**Classic short stories by a beloved virtuoso of language, craft, and madness from the American South“His writing was anarchic and wonderfully funny. He sounded like what you’d get if you stirred three heaping teaspoons of Thomas Pynchon and Terry Southern into a jar of Eudora Welty.”—Dwight Garner, The New York TimesA Penguin Classic**In the eight stories collected in Captain Maximus, Barry Hannah explores the lives of everymen and eccentrics alik...

An all-access ticket to the celebrated and wholly original mind of Mark Leyner, “one of the smartest and funniest humans since Aristophanes” (Jay McInerney)Praised as “chaotic and vibrant” (Charles Yu), “visionary” (Sam Lipsyte), and “supremely original” (John Cusack), the work of Mark Leyner has inspired a generation of contemporary novelists and has long deserved its place of recognition among the literary superstars of the seismic postmodernism-influenced movemen...