---Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook

What if somebody finally wrote to his high school alumni bulletin and told...the truth! Here is an update from hell, and the most brilliant work to date, by the novelist whom Jeffrey Eugenides calls "original, devious, and very funny" and of whose first novel Chuck Palahniuk wrote, "I laughed out loud---and I never laugh out loud."

The Eastern Valley High School Alumni newsletter, Catamount Notes, is bursting with tales of success: former students include a bankable politician and a famous baseball star, not to mention a major-label recording artist. Then there is the appalling, yet utterly lovable, Lewis Miner, class of '89---a.k.a Teabag---who did not pan out. This is his confession in all its bitter, lovelorn glory.

"Lipsyte's vision of our collective existence is so accurately skewed, there is no escaping the delirious---and beautifully disturbing---shock of recognition. Writing this deep is rare enough---writing this deep and this hysterical pretty much didn't exist until Lipsyte began pouring it onto the page."--Jerry Stahl, author of I, Fatty

"Lipsyte is playful and lewd, bleak and farcical, walking a fine line between near-glib humour and a genuine existential fear one could even call Beckettian. . . . Sam Lipsyte can really write."--Aida Edamariam, The Guardian

"Sam Lipsyte has got balls the size of watermelons. He's ripped the piss out of his Yank countrymen so much that he gets published here in the UK first. He's one wicked sod. You'll love it."--Lads

Sam Lipsyte was born in 1968. He is the author of the story collection Venus Drive (named one of the top twenty-five books of its year by the Voice Literary Supplement) and the novel The Subject Steve. He lives in Astoria, Queens.