THE ASK by Sam Lipsyte

The Ask is a real treasure: with Larry David-esque timing, the pathos of a recovering sports fan, and a fire-breather's flair for language, Lipsyte writes like most of his contemporaries only dream of. His prose is alive and well. He is as funny as Gary Shteyngart, as sad as Woody Allen at his most comfortless, and his ribald wit rivals comic Louis C.K.'s. In The Ask, Lipsyte writes about Milo Burke, a down-and-out full time dad who may just have a second whack at his old job. Burke has to contend with his old college roommate, Stuart Purdy, a real schmuck who snuck up on the dot com craze with a few crazy plans of his own, and is still collecting from that. Purdy wants Milo to do an Ask for him: "An Ask could be a person , or what we wanted from that person. If they gave it to us, that was a give." Purdy enlists Milo to do one last job, think 007 without all the sword play. Burke is entering a world of hell, and it'd only be wise to join him.