The Gift Book

Phillip's best friends are richer than he is. They're more successful. Worst of all, they give fabulous presents: a handmade corkscrew from Venice, an irritatingly perfect jade carving, impossible-to-get soccer tickets. These are gifts that hurt a man's pride. And they can never be matched. Which doesn't mean Phillip won't try ... Outrageously funny and deftly observed, The Gift delights in the comically destructive forces of envy and desire that drive us all.

The New York Times

The Gift mines the same veins of male envy and bitterness that Martin Amis so ably tapped in The Information, and the darkness that creeps into Phillip's pathetic quest lends his comic misadventures a satisfying depth. Even when Flusfeder's protagonist is at his most grotesque, only the most fortune-blessed readers will fail to recognize in themselves the same disappointments that transform Phillip into such a rough but amusing beast. —Scott Sutherland