The Fun Parts

A hilarious collection of stories from the writer called “the novelist of his generation”.

Returning to the form in which he began, Sam Lipsyte, author of the bestseller , offers up , a book of bold, hilarious, and deeply felt fiction. A boy eats his way to self-discovery while another must battle the reality-brandishing monster preying on his fantasy realm. Meanwhile, an aerobics instructor, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, makes the most shocking leap imaginable to save her soul. These are just a few of the stories, some first published in , or , that unfold in Lipsyte’s richly imagined world.

Other tales feature a grizzled and possibly deranged male birth doula, a doomsday hustler about to face the multi-universal truth of “the real-ass jumbo,” and a tawdry glimpse of the northern New Jersey high school shot-putting circuit, circa 1986. Combining both the tragicomic dazzle of his beloved novels and the compressed vitality of his classic debut collection,is Lipsyte at his best — an exploration of new voices and vistas from a writer magazine has said “everyone should read.”