The Slate Culture Gabfest is discussing Sam Lipsyte's new novel, The Ask, next week as part of its first live show in New York City. Loyal listener that I am, I picked up this novel and was immediately surprised to find that cultually-minded Slate readers are both the target audience and the target of its biting satire.The Ask's central character is a university development officer, Milo Burke. The book opens with him losing his job after telling off a development student. But when Purdy Stuart, a billionaire and Milo's college housemate, becomes a potential "ask" for the development office, the university hires Milo back. Milo soon realizes that working Purdy for a donation means working for Purdy, as Milo gets enlisted in a series of unsavory tasks for his ask.
Meanwhile, Milo's not doing so well on the home front either. He lives in Queens, which is the closest to Manhattan that he and his wife can afford. His wife, Maura, is a sometimes lesbian who may or may not be having an affair with a male coworker who may or may not be gay.
What makes Milos situation more pathetic is his self-awareness. Written in first person, Milo's witty sarcasm reveals the derailment of the American dream. He sees himself as a loser. Purdy's accountant scolds Milo, "For heaven's sake, the system's rigged for white men and you still can't tap in." Indeed, Milo does feel like someone who once had opportunity, and now doesn't. He admits, "Maybe I wasn't going anywhere...I had always been bitter, was still bitter, was bitter about the bitterness." He tells us about the the story of a stay-at-home dad neighbor who was a chef. When Milo read that the chef and his young family died in a car accident, Milo feels an empathic sense of relief. "He would never go down in history, or case history, as a shitty father. Whereas me, I still had a decent shot." But it isn't clear if Milo's failure is simply due to Milo's lack of trying or to a larger, systemic American problem.
But Milo isn't only pointing out a flaw in his life trajectory; it's also a flaw in the trajectory of the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Bachelor's in Liberal Arts toting, wannabe artist twenty-somethings who flooded New York City over the past decade, only to become disillusioned thirty somethings who have resigned themselves to real jobs. When the novel opens, Milo reflects on the disdain he says for the privileged students who squander their parents money at his university. But then he realizes "I'd been just like these wretches once. Now they stared through me, as though I were merely some drone in their sight line...They were right. That's exactly what I was."
As Milo's story moves forward, he also takes us back to moments of opportunity in the past, and how he never took advantage of them. For instance, after college, Purdy actually asked Milo to become involved in an online music store. Milo brushed this off to work on his painting. Soon enough, Purdy sold his store for hundreds of millions; Milo didn't sell any paintings.
Milo and others' bitterness comes across as a rant against America. His coworker, Horace, opens the novel ranting, "America...was a run-down and demented pimp. Our republic's whoremaster days were through...We're the bitches of the First World." America's a bitch because Americans were either bitches or bitch masters. Milo sees himself in the bitch category, serving Purdy in his quest to cover up the existence of a twenty-something son who lost his legs in Iraq and is now determined to get what's his from Purdy. Though I found myself classifying each character as either servant or served, I started to realize that this book isn't exactly about such clear divisions. Each character has some limitations in their opportunities, no matter how wealthy they started out their lives. In addition, Milo's life isn't all that shitty compared to others in the novel. Milo has no skills, squandered his time as an artist, and still managed to get a cushy job, after all. Milo is a sympathetic character, but is also the butt of the joke. Instead of beating down on America, Lipsyte suggests there is still hope yet. It's not about the class into which one is born, but what they do with it once there.
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