Tom Fleming
This Pointless Life
Home Land
By Sam Lipsyte
Flamingo 38pp £12
SINCE HE LEFT high school, Lewis Miner, class of '89, has seen his fellow alumni go on to become notable members of society. He, though, considers himself lucky when he gets work doing menial research for a cola company. When Principal Fontana sends him the Eastern Valley High School Alumni Newsletter, Catamount Notes, Lewis is stirred into writing his own updates, of which Home Land is composed; his is an anti-fable, the confessions of a dangerous mind and a feckless body, the story of a man who did not pan out.
Incidents of dramatic note are non-existent in Lewis's life. He spends time daydreaming about The Kid, a champion masturbator, and Gwendolyn, his one-time fiancée, whom he met at an aphorism slam in Toronto and who wants to make it big in Hollywood. As the alumnus community prepare for the Togethering
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
It wasn’t until 1825 that Pepys’s diary became available for the first time. How it was eventually decrypted and published is a story of subterfuge and duplicity.
Kate Loveman tells the tale.
Kate Loveman - Publishing Pepys
Kate Loveman: Publishing Pepys
literaryreview.co.uk
Arthur Christopher Benson was a pillar of the Edwardian establishment. He was supremely well connected. As his newly published diaries reveal, he was also riotously indiscreet.
Piers Brendon compares Benson’s journals to others from the 20th century.
Piers Brendon - Land of Dopes & Tories
Piers Brendon: Land of Dopes & Tories - The Benson Diaries: Selections from the Diary of Arthur Christopher Benson by Eamon Duffy & Ronald Hyam (edd)
literaryreview.co.uk
Of the siblings Gwen and Augustus John, it is Augustus who has commanded most attention from collectors and connoisseurs.
Was he really the finer artist, asks Tanya Harrod, or is it time Gwen emerged from her brother’s shadow?
Tanya Harrod - Cut from the Same Canvas
Tanya Harrod: Cut from the Same Canvas - Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John by Judith Mackrell
literaryreview.co.uk