Subject Steve

The dazzling debut novel from the author of The Ask and Home Land Sam Lipsyte''s The Subject Steve is by turns manic ebullient and exquisitely deadpan—and belongs in the company with the master American satirists.Meet Steve (not his real name) a Special Case in truth a Terminal Case and the eponymous antihero of Lipsyte''s first novel. Steve has been informed by two doctors that he is dying of a condition of unquestioned fatality with no discernible physical cause. Eager for fame and to brand the new plague they dub it Goldfarb-Blackstone Preparatory Extinction Syndrome or PREXIS for short. Turns out though Steve''s just dying of boredom.