It has been several years since I've read something so poetically raw and honest, not since Jesus' Son and Fight Club. However, there is a grave wisdom behind these tales, a knowledge of what's real, what hurts, and what counts. In other words, there is more going on here than the act itself, the performance. This book will become a classic. Sam Lipsyte's stories are worth reading again and again.

I've read numerous (probably too many) short story collections this year which were very good, but Venus Drive gets my vote for the best collection of short stories published in 2000. Why wasn't one of these included in the O'Henry Anthology or The Best American collection? Idiots! I can't wait for Lipsyte's next book. Go, Sam, Go!

Lipsyte uses the short story genre like the masters (Pynchon, Delillo etc) use the epic novel: to create fiction that exists on its own stylistic plane. The reader truly does enter his world while reading these stories. A reviewer suggests the book be read in one sitting. I disagree, and would opt for a slow reading and re-reading to fully appreciate Lipsyte's use of language and development of characters. Know going in these are not minimalist tales about happy people dealing with relationships, bosses or other trivialites of every day life. Lipsyte is going for something a lot deeper here, and he seems to have succeeded well.

A great book.

Gives McSweeney's a run for thier money. I am now eagerly awaiting works from several of these contributers.

... with a little Vonnegut leavening. (SAFE, for those not in the know, is a Todd Haynes movie from the mid-90's about a woman suffering from a mysterious illness.)

For those who are Palahniuk fans and have blown through all of his books (not a difficult task), THE SUBJECT STEVE may be a good followup. It veers a couple degrees farther away from reality (and closer to a Vonnegut-esque satirical future), and is potentially even more willfully transgressive than any of Palahniuk's work, without any of the underlying thematic logic that Palahniuk's transgressive bits seem to have.

But there's definitely something with potential here, and it's intermittently fulfilled. Perhaps the biggest problem is that it's attempting to be a satire, and the target (or targets) of its satire gets so diffuse by the end of the book that it's obscured entirely. Regardless, a quick read, and there will be those who love it, so definitely check it out if your tastes lean in the directions outlined in this and other reviews.

B.F. Skinner's Walden II and all I got was this lousy novel. Ok, it's not lousy. It's great. It reaches a bit more than Saunders' CivilWarLand and a bit less than any Palahniuk book, and seems to succeed more than either of them because of that balance. There are more than a few completely random or ribald passages, so it's certainly not to everyone's taste, but if you're in the mood for something a little nervy, you have reached your destination.

This book is extraordinarily well written, and Lipsyte is a master diagnostician of our modern condition. Miss it at your peril!