The dazzling debut novel from the author of The Ask and Home Land, Sam Lipsyte's The Subject Steve is by turns manic, ebullient, and exquisitely deadpan—and belongs in the company with the master American satirists.

Meet Steve (not his real name), a Special Case, in truth, a Terminal Case, and the eponymous antihero of Lipsyte's first novel. Steve has been informed by two doctors that he is dying of a condition

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"A tender, funny, and fresh novel about a gay writer in New York City whose life is irrevocably altered, and then again thirty years later"-- Artie Anderson wouldn't call himself lonely, not exactly. He has a beautiful apartment in the West Village, a steady career as a ghostwriter, and he has Halle and Vanessa, who--as the daughter and ex-wife of his former partner--are the closest thing he can call family. But when the women announce a move across...