Customer Reviews

Venus Drive

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Sam Lipsyte writes very funny stories about very painful things. This is a *forceful* book - Lipsyte's characters are gripped and ripped by forces the writer brings alive with language that describes things words can barely contain: an apartment building full of old women waiting for death; a summer camp that mirrors, in mysterious ways, the cruel workings of concentration camps; a tele-marketer's face-off with loneliness... The subject matter can be shocking, and is often quite dark; the book is full of death, drugs, and abandoned dreams. Here's a passage from "My Life, For Promotional Use Only," in which a failed rocker turned dot-commer describes his new life:

"Once in a while, though, in the elevator at work, someone will stop me, a man my age with a cell phone, a portfolio case. He will ask me if I am who I am, recall with wonder something I did on stage with safety razors, mayonnaise. Maybe it's some dim gift I've given him, some phony idea that he's reached into danger long enough for one life. Now he can make some calls, do some deals. But neither of us knows what danger is. Neither of us is sinking fast through lake weeds."

But it's worth repeating that these stories, which reveal life with an honesty you'll see in few first-time collections, are often hilarious. Far from the fast (or slow) sink so much of today's fiction has become, this book - free of parlor tricks and cheap sentimentality, and full of small, hard, truths - is the triumphant surfacing of a fresh, and glorious, new voice.

Sharp, taut, seriously funny and tremendously sad. Comparable in many ways to Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son, but with greater range. A beautiful book that I just can't stop reading and re-reading.

Venus Drive might be a street or it might be an admonition to a woman in the getaway car after a bank robbery, but this book is one long riff on how folks get by. Not so much in how they get and spend their money, but in how they spend their lives. Life is currancy, and these people are flush.

If you like your books hot and twisted, read Rabid: A Novel by Kenyon, Tree of Smoke: A Novel by Johnson, The Pugilist at Rest: Stories by Jones, and Fight Club: A Novel by Palahniuk.

The Bookeater!

This book is dark and ugly. While reading it, I felt like I was wallowing in excrement, much like Renton did in the outhouse in "Trainspotting." The narrator fondles his dying sister and shoots up his mother's remains. What's next: his dad, a plunger, and a well-oiled gerbil?!

There's some good writing here, especially the story about the poor fat kid ruthlessly tortured at summer camp. But this book is the ugly runt cousin of books like "Jesus' Son," and maxxed out my limit on smack-shooting sibling-molesting misery.

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.

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!

I'd read a lot of good things about Sam Lipsyte so when he appeared recently at my local bookstore I got to meet him and picked up this--his early collection (republished)-- and his latest novel, The Ask.

Lipsyte is an incredibly talented writer with a devilish sense of humor, which serves him well. The stories in this collection often include depressing and morbid themes but Lipyte's word acrobatics and writing flair make most a treat to read. I'm a slow reader but plowed through thi...more I'd read a lot of good things about Sam Lipsyte so when he appeared recently at my local bookstore I got to meet him and picked up this--his early collection (republished)-- and his latest novel, The Ask.

Lipsyte is an incredibly talented writer with a devilish sense of humor, which serves him well. The stories in this collection often include depressing and morbid themes but Lipyte's word acrobatics and writing flair make most a treat to read. I'm a slow reader but plowed through this book, finding 10 of the 12 stories rather exceptional. Rarely do I enjoy so many stories in a collection.

Not all reader will appreciate and enjoy the characters or subject matter as they can be pretty base and gritty. But if the idea of Hubert Selby storylines told by Groucho Marx sounds like a good time, then pick up Venus Drive

It is often said that a writer, a good writer, writes first and foremost about what he or she knows best. If that is the case with Mr. Lipsyte then I feel sorry for him. How he took the time and put in the effort to write stories such as those found within this collection makes me question him not only as a writer but as a human being. The "intellectual" will probably cry foul with this assessment and point out how his characters delve into a dark, humorous, and challenging underbelly of life that is rarely exposed.

This book isn't dark, its perverted. Sam? Can you write anything that doesn't involve genitalia?
This book isn't funny, because it tries entirely to hard to be just that, and fails miserably.
This book isn't a challenge, rather a burden.

Again, some will praise his randomness. I'd prefer to substitute "unnecessary", in place of random.

I'm not sure if this book confused itself for a wartime policy, you know the one where SHOCK & AWE are used.

Seriously, since when did being deep or provocative mean one has too fondle his sister(first story) or glorify the junky (every other story)?

I've never thrown away a book, so this will be a first. I'm throwing it away and writing this review in hopes, although the chance is slim, that maybe Mr. Lipsyte or one of his friends will take notice.

Maybe Lipsyte can redeem himself down the road, drop the act and show off his real talent.


P.S. Dedicating the book to your mother, great choice.