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The Ask

The Ask

Author(s): Sam Lipsyte

Location(s): New York City (NYC)

Genre(s): Fiction

Era(s): 21st Century

Location

Content

Set in Queens. Milo Burke — husband to a ‘touched-out’ wife, father to a three-year-old son, fund-raising officer at a third-tier university — has just joined the swelling ranks of the unemployed. As he grasps after odd jobs to support his wife and child, Milo is contacted by Purdy Stuart, a wealthy, one-time university friend with a sinister agenda. It is the start of a hilarious and harrowing odyssey through several degrees of peculiarly 21st-century hell — a journey recorded by Milo with the caustic eloquence that is his only means of defence.
Hailed as the first great ‘post-Iraq’ novel, The Ask has been a critical sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. It is a dazzlingly entertaining read that anatomises our crisis-ridden times with equal part ferocity and compassion.

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Lead Review

‘Hysterically funny . . . amazing . . . it affords breathtaking views of the social landscape of “late capitalism”‘ Observer

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