this cover is too dark for a good picture. i'm sorry. i picked up sam lipsyte's the fun parts because bj novak endorsed it on his instagram. though i am heartbroken that he no longer follows me on there, i will continue to read the books that he recommends via it.
i hadn't heard of lipyste prior to bj's post, but i learned from the front cover that he is a writer for time magazine and has written for the new yorker, the paris review and playboy. a nice variety and make sense because his work is witty and very tongue-in-cheek.
the stories were very interesting and twisted. i enjoyed "deniers", the story of a daughter of a holocaust survivor that wanted to connect with her father who refused to tell her about it. in the end, she ended up dating an ex-nazi, in an attempt to help reform him. i enjoyed the premise of "the republic of empathy", it demonstrated six degrees of separation, how we are linked in life, though i didn't get the ending. or maybe i just wasn't intelligent enough, maybe it's supposed to be that all humans are connected but in the end it doesn't save mankind, it just an odd series of coincidences. so that story was actually very deep as well. i liked the idea of the male doula and imagined morgan from the mindy project as the doulo. i also enjoyed snacks and exploration of how shitty it is to be fat. also it demonstrated of how violence and hate is really just self-hate.
the rest of the stories were well written but not my cup of tea. lipstye is a great writer as demonstrated by the list of publications he worked for. i enjoyed his references post pop culture and literary. my favorite one was from "the republic of empathy", "she has nice, soft-looking hair, which is a tell-me-about-the-rabbits-george thing to say, but what can you do?" lol. well played!
enjoyable read, didn't completely wow me, but since this is the year of the short story, glad that i read these.
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