The Fun Parts - Softcover

Sam Lipsyte

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1847088031 ISBN 13: 9781847088031

Publisher: Granta, 2013

Synopsis

A boy eats his way to self-discovery while another must battle the reality-brandishing monster preying on his fantasy realm. Meanwhile, an aerobics instructor, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, makes the most shocking leap imaginable to save her soul. Bold, hilarious and darkly affecting, Lipsyte's stories combine the tragicomic dazzle of his beloved novels and the compressed vitality of his classic debut collection. The Fun Parts is Lipsyte at his best - an exploration of new voices and vistas from a writer Time magazine has said 'everyone should read'.

About this title

Review:

I'd wholeheartedly direct you towards this sour and scintillating new collection of short stories. ... The dialogue constantly sparkles and unsettles, with strange seismic shifts going on beneath the surface of the prose. You won't read finer sentences this year. --Scotland on Sunday

Lipsyte is most commonly praised for his hilarious flights of fancy, but he is also a precise and perceptive observer, capable of impaling a lifestyle with one sparse aside. --The Observer

The Fun Parts is an idiosyncratic, hyperactively rendered collection where words and ideas collide to dazzling effect. It's a no-holds-barred, dementedly imaginative assemblage of the extremes of contemporary life. ... Lipsyte is a funny and merciless writer with a mean eye for oddities and, where his relentless interplay of linguistic ferocity and oddball narrative can be wearing at novel length, in short-form fiction it's sharp and deeply, blackly funny. --Metro

Its atmosphere is cute, spry and bizarre. ... The best are less otherworldly. It is funny because it is true to what is sometimes missing in all the wisecracks, one-liners, grotesques and gussied-up endings elsewhere life. --The Sunday Times

Clever enough to pack his tales with a profusion of funny lines, Lipsyte's humane view of the world steers him away from the glibness that would have made this book far less palatable. --Herald

Lipsyte spins out his lines at a breakneck clip, the riffs come thick and fast, and the gags are sprayed on with a machine gun. He is a detail-fiend, a maximalist, and he possesses an expansive linguistic imagination that can satisfy his leanings. If you're a reader like me, this can make for a whole lot of fun. --Kevin Barry, Guardian

Inventive, daring, and wildly funny --Times Literary Supplement

They're undeniably clever, and linguistically inventive. The word-choice is deliberately unexpected, sometimes perversely so' --Independent on Sunday

Inventive, daring, and wildly funny --Times Literary Supplement

About the Author:

SAM LIPSYTE was born in 1968. He is the author of the short story collection Venus Drive and three novels: The Subject Steve, Home Land, and The Ask, which was a New York Times Notable Book. He teaches at Columbia University in New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Granta
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1847088031
• ISBN 13: 9781847088031
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240