The Subject Steve

MAY 1, 2003

Wow, the writing style in this is so fresh. Imagine Wes Anderson humor infused in a book about a man dying of boredom. Yeah, pretty cool, eh? The author, Sam Lipsythe, is definitely a force to be reckoned with and this is more a book about his voice than it is about the actual subject. Like Mel Brooks did with movies, Lipsythe is able to poke fun at the way we read books and the way they tend to be written. It meant I laughed out loud on more than one occassion.

As I mentioned, the book is about this guy who is dying of boredom, but he really isn't dying at all, it's just what his doctors tell him as they try to conjure up a new disease. The story follows his attempts at curing his non-existant illness, and they are nothing if not far-fetched. Of course, this makes for a roller-coaster ride of a book. Now that my typical book review synopsis is done, this book is fucking crazy and I loved it for that. The path you follow makes perfect sense as you read it but would sound like utter nonsense if you tried to explain it, which is evidence of Lipsythe's brilliance.

The reason this book got a B is because it didn't have something special in it. Most teachers believe that in order to get an A you have to do something out of the ordinary, something spectacular. I don't think that Steve is up to that level. Nonetheless, it is a really fun and really fast read.

I'm going to be seeing Sam Lipsythe do a reading this weekend at Soft Skull, my local independent bookstore/publisher.

Posted in Book at 6:01 pm.