by Sam Lipsyte (2005)
Home Land is a bitter and acidically funny book about a smart-assed failure named Lewis (also known, after an unfortunate high school incident, as “Teabag”), who, via his high school’s alumni newsletter, decides to tell his former classmates (many of whom seem to personify success and adult contentedness while Lewis spends his time doing little more than loafing around with his friend Gary, a guy who has got some issues of his own – to put it lightly), exactly what is on his mind: to broadcast the inner life of someone who “did not pan out”.
As an anti-hero, Lewis isn’t particularly likable – but then again, no one in this novel is likable. But likability was not a hindrance in my enjoyment of the book, though its cleverness almost was. Home Land nearly suffers from ultra quick witted writing (think Juno) that, while fun to read, sometimes left me wondering how it was possible that everyone in the book’s universe could be so quirky.
Author Sam Lipsyte won a Believer Book Award for Home Land and it earned a spot on the Times Notable Books of 2005.
But what do you think?