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
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