Home Land author Sam Lipsyte:
by Daniel Robert Epstein for SuicideGirls (http://suicidegirls.com/)

Home Land is definitely one of the funniest books on the bookshelves this year. Sam Lipsyte has crafted a biting witty and satirical love letter to high school, most likely flipping the bird at the same time.

Home Land is the story of Lewis Miner or Teabag as he was known in high school. It is a series of letters that Teabag sent to The Eastern Valley High School Alumni newSL:etter, Catamount Notes. His confesses his innermost anger right across that high school’s metaphorical face.

Go buy Home Land

Daniel Robert Epstein: Is your dad really Robert Lipsyte?

Sam Lipsyte: Yeah.

DRE: I used to work with him at MetroTV. He would remember me because I told him that he wrote one of my favorite books of all time, One Fat Summer.

SL:: I love that book too. Did you ever read the sequels?

DRE: I did but they weren’t as good.

SL:: [laughs] They kept the spirit alive.

DRE: I liked your book also.

How did you come up with the unique idea of the book, were you contacted by your alumni association?

SL:: I was at a friend’s house where I saw his alumni bulletin and I was just taken with the bullshit. It was interesting to see this constant list of promotions and children. Everything seemed so cheerful and optimistic. I was thinking about what it would be like if someone wrote in the truth.

DRE: Did you have to go through the painful process of looking over all your stuff from high school for ideas?

SL:: No I really tried to keep my experiences out of it so I wouldn’t be burdened with the facts. I guess there is some autobiography in there but I really set it in a New Jersey of the mind. It’s not supposed to be representative of my high school experience.

DRE: Would the autobiographical things be noticeable to people you went to high school with?

SL:: No, but they may be noticeable to my wife.

DRE: So would your wife agree with you that’s its not autobiographical?

SL:: I think she would pray that he wasn’t me. When you are writing your earlier stuff that’s where the straight up autobiography stuff pours out. Then there is that old cliché that everyone has one book in them. After that it’s about constructing new characters and thinking through world views that aren’t your own.

DRE: Did the format of the book help you get over that or did it just work?

SL:: It really just started as a story then I realized I could keep going. The form flowed naturally with what I was trying to do with the voice and the story. It all wove together.

DRE: It seems like you had a blast writing all this wild stuff. Was this book easier to write than the other books you’ve written?

SL:: They all present their own difficulties. This was a matter of finding the compelling voice of Lewis Miner. But the work was really just to sustain and not let it go off the rails.

DRE: Did you write a separate background for Lewis outside of the book?

SL:: I sort of pieced it together as I went but that’s generally how I work. I think a lot of writers work that way. I don’t really plan ahead too much so I can discover it as I go.

DRE: Did you discover that process through trial and error?

SL:: Yeah I took wrong turns, had to backtrack and throw out a lot of pages. That’s the process with me.

DRE: Is fun the right word to use when you are writing a book?

SL:: When it’s going well there is nothing more fun. When it’s going poorly it’s pretty awful.

DRE: For this book, when you got stuck did you do anything different because it’s such an atypical kind of book?

SL:: It’s just the same voice in my head telling me that I’m a piece of shit and that I should try again.

DRE: Whose voice does it sound like?

SL:: I think I’ve reached the point where it sounds like my voice [laughs].

DRE: At least it doesn’t sound like someone you know.

SL:: Exactly.

DRE: I read you had a lot of trouble getting the book picked up by a publisher.

SL:: Yeah, even though it sold in the UK immediately I couldn’t find an American publisher even after going to about 25 places. Eventually it came back around to an editor who had always been interested but had never been in a position to make it happen. This time he could. He was an editor at FSG but he had made an arrangement with Picador USA because they do a lot of FSG’s paperbacks. So they decided to do Home Land as a paperback original. That’s why there is no hardcover.

DRE: Is that unusual?

SL:: I think that model may be used more and more. I think they are finding that it might get to the people that don’t want to lay down $29 for a hardcover.

DRE: How are you with that?

SL:: I just want as many people to read it as possible. I’m very happy because I think it’s worked out well.

DRE: Is the book any different in the UK edition?

SL:: The editor in the UK had some ideas so I put in a page and a half in the beginning. Then for the US edition I changed my mind and took it out. I think I also added a couple of lines for his big speech at the end for the American version.

DRE: How is the book doing?

SL:: It seems to be doing well because it just went into its second printing.

DRE: What kind of stuff did publishers say to you when they passed on it?

SL:: “We don’t know how to market it.” Some people said they didn’t like the book which I respect. What bothered me were the people that said they loved the book but they didn’t understand how to sell it. In a way it’s compliment because it means you’ve created something which doesn’t fit neatly into a SL:ot. But it was also very frustrating.

DRE: There have been books that have used the form of all letters to people.

SL:: It’s an old novelistic form but I don’t think that was the problem. I think it was the tone of the humor and how extreme it gets at times. My current editor thinks that a lot of these people were pretty humorless.

DRE: Jerry Stahl and Chuck Palahniuk gave you quotes.

SL:: Yeah they’ve been very supportive. Chuck liked my last book and Jerry has been really encouraging for this one. It’s nice to have people you respect to respond to what you’re doing.

DRE: Jerry can do a performance type book reading, is that something you could do?

SL:: I don’t have props or anything but I try to make it energetic and entertaining as possible.

DRE: Does humor come easy to you?

SL:: It just feels second nature to me. I think I respond to the world with a certain amount of comic defensiveness. It’s my default setting.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/Home+Land+author+Sam+Lipsyte%3A/