Reviews for Home Land : A Novel

The average rating for Home Land : A Novel based on 2 reviews is 2 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-12-30 00:00:00 Raymond Wigger Just like those ubiquitous Christmas newsletters that seem like so much bragging where you only ever hear about the GOOD THINGS that happen, relentlessly cheery alumni newsletters are only telling you HALF the story. I mean, not everybody can turn out to be a big success after graduation, right? Each class has to have some losers. Meet Lewis Miner, aka "Teabag." Still hanging around town. Still single. Still marginally employed. And now he's telling it like it is in the Catamount Notes alumni newsletter. Like last year's The Relic Master: A Novel, this is another one of those disconcerting novels I should have loved, but I just didn't. It's frequently hilarious and incredibly well written. Listen to one of Lewis's rants: Sometimes, alums, I'll be walking down the street, catch myself chanting softly, "Blow my friggin' head off, blow my goddamn friggin' head off." Doesn't everybody, Catamounts? The voices, I figure they're just a kind of role call, a homeroom attendance of the soul. Delusional Confidence? Here. Underlying Sense of Worthlessness? Here. Cycle of Emotional Abuse? Step off, motherfucker! There were some really, REALLY funny lines, and terrific laugh-out-loud stuff here . Yet, the whole thing seemed empty and somehow incohesive. Reading it became a chore that I put off for those last few minutes of the day before slumber takes over. Near the end of the book, the Catamounts attend a bizarre class reunion called the "Togethering," and our man, Lewis makes a fantastic speech, a speech that rivals the commencement address that Kurt Vonnegut never gave - Lewis's speech includes the brilliant line - "If you can't say anything nice, you're beginning to see the bigger picture." But, it was too little, too late. However, like my pal, Brian mentions in his review - , things that don't work in a novel may serve perfectly for a short story, so I'll be giving one of Lipsyte's collections a read later this year. Talent like this cannot be ignored.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-05-06 00:00:00 Robert Gordon The waste of talent on display here makes me angry. Lipsyte has chops for weeks, but he uses them not to tell a story, or create actual characters, but to show off, and show off, and show off. The dialogue is snappy. The setups are unique. The anguish is convincing. But Lipsyte cares so little about his characters that it's impossible to keep them straight, much less feel anything when their heads get bashed in with maces. And he cares even less about story. Page after perfectly calibrated page goes by, and it's all so boring. Yes, I get it that Teabag is a masturbatory, self-loathing, do-nothing protagonist. But does the novel have to share all of those qualities with its antihero? I don't think it does.