Sam Lipsyte is the author of the novel No One Left to Come Looking for You (Simon & Schuster).

Lipsyte is the author of the story collections Venus Drive and The Fun Parts and four novels: Hark, The Ask (a New York Times Notable Book), The Subject Steve, and Home Land, which was a New York Times Notable Book and received the Believer Book Award. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Best American Short Stories, among other places. The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, he lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.

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Now playing on Otherppl, a conversation with Sam Lipsyte. His new novel, Hark, is available from Simon & Schuster.

This is Sam’s second time on the podcast. He first appeared in Episode 154, on March 6, 2013.

His other books include the story collections Venus Drive (named one of the top twenty-five books of its year by the Voice Literary Supplement) and The Fun Parts, and three other novels: The Ask, The Subject Steve, and Home Land, which was a New York Times Notable Book and received the first annual Believer Book Award. He is also the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship. He lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.

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What have you done now?

I’ve spilled coffee on my shirt.

Do you own any clothes that aren’t stained?

I must. Stuff I haven’t worn, probably. Do you have any club soda? If I act now I can save this shirt.

Why are you such a slob?

I’m really not a slob. I just get excited. What is that?

The sign in the Sweet Apple kitchen declared it a nut-free zone, and every September somebody, almost always a dad, cracked the usual stupid joke. The gag, Laura, the school director, told Tovah, would either mock the school’s concern for potentially lethal legumes or else suggest that despite the sign’s assurance, not everyone at Sweet Apple could boast of sanity.

Today, as Tovah leaned into the fridge to adjust the lunch bag heap, a skinny gray-haired man in a polo shirt, old enough to be the grandfather of the girl who called him “Papa” as he nudged her toward the cubbies, winked at Tovah, pointed to the sign.

Here it came, the annual benediction.

Sam Lipsyte is the guest.  His new story collection, The Fun Parts, is now available from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.

In New York? We hope you’ll come out to TNB editor Shya Scanlon’s big event on January 26th. The line-up is amazing–including TNB contributor Amy Shearn–and for the pre-order ticket price of ten bucks, you get a free copy of Shya’s debut novel. That’s half-off the cover price! A great event, and a book that Peter Straub has called “a bright, dazzling world that might have been plotted by a consortium of William Gibson, Philip K. Dick, and Don DeLillo.”

Here’s a link to more info about the show, and to pre-order tickets. The event is at the beautiful Le Poisson Rouge on Bleeker. Come party like a literary rock star!

See you there!

In 2004 I sat on someone’s couch, listening to a writing group take turns demolishing one of my short stories. The final critique, delivered by a woman in pointy architect’s glasses, concluded by saying “It’s so Sam Lipsyte.” I had no idea what that meant. A few days later I picked up a copy of Home Land, dreading the worst. Instead, I found it to be hilariously unhinged, a string of baroque epistolary riffs wound around the neck of its reliability-challenged narrator. Exactly the palate cleanser I needed at a time when spending a Tuesday With Morrie seemed desirable to large swaths of the populace. The Architect had done me a real favor.

A: A Night Together!

Okay, there’s no real joke here. But there is a great event coming to NYC on April 6th, cosponsored by The Rumpus, Tin House Magazine, and Flavorpill. “A Night Together” features authors Sam Lipsyte, Colson Whitehead, and Lorelei Lee (yes, THAT Lorelei Lee),This American Life’s Starlee Kine and comedians Michael Showalter and Dave Hill. It will also have music by Jeffrey Lewis and Alina Simone.

The preorder price for tickets is ten bucks, but if you tweet, blog or post about the event to your Facebook page, you’ll get four dollars off. Now, I’m not great at maths, but I think that’s 6 dollars. Which–again, this is shaky–comes out to a dollar per featured person, not including the musicians. Rock solid, if you ask me.

So you should really think about doing that posting thing. And if you don’t live in NYC, you should post anyway, and like give your discounted ticket to someone you know in the city. Because shit, you totally owe them a favor. To get your discount, post a comment here, linking to your tweet/blog/etc.