Book: The Ask by Sam Lipsyte

The Ask was a New York Times Bestseller but only because the author writes well and is entertaining, not because the book is worthy. It is just one of those wickedly fun books to read..all that edgy, neurotic New York stuff, fast-paced, clever, witty. The main character Milo gets sort of fired from his job in which he has to get money from rich people for philanthropic reasons. They are the "Asks" and one Ask specifically wants to work only with Milo, except now he is fired.

Milo has a wife Maura, and small son, Bernie. He loves them both but his wife leaves him, sort of temporarily she implies, so he is cast adrift in New York, and if you want to laugh and follow Milo around for a few weeks, then read this book. It's about people utterly self-absorbed, generically like you and me, but specifically quite different by virtue of living where they do, when they do.

"Horace lived in a huge room filled with cages. Inside each cage was a young person, a futon or cot, a footlocker, a few milk crates. Bare bulbs on wires hung from fixtures in the high ceiling. I'd read about these places. Kids moved to the city, but there were no apartments left to rent to them, or none they could afford. But on a starting salary, or no salary, you could maybe manage a cage. Several dozen people resided here among the drum kits and guitar amps, the antique film editing deck, a few long tables and spindly chairs, a mini fridge. Power cables streaked the floor under mounds of black and silver tape. Laptops glowed from the cages. Voices rose and fell, rippled about the room, a dozen conversations going at once, or maybe one conversation replicated over and over by feral and beautiful children..."

Milo ends up here for a bit. He bounces around, getting close to his Ask when he is sort of hired back but also keeps wondering about this job or non-job. He schleps Bernie to daycare, has single-man adventures. It's like Seinfeld or Woody Allen with more profanity.

The writing reminds of Nick Hornby's novels but is less sweet and with nothing really to recommend it, except that the author is obviously smart and deft with words and social satire, even though the characters and story are not all that memorable. The Ask is just one more funny, easy-to-read, instant gratification kind of book....not that there is anything wrong with that.