Ask Me, Ask Me...

July is always a fine book-reading month, and this time I nourished the head with seven or eight, including the new, resonant Don DeLillo and a book by Tim Parks about professional burn-out, 'Teach Us To Sit Still'. Happily, I read that little account by the comfort of the holiday pool, but it was still rather alarming.

For light relief there was David Quantick's 'Dangerous Book For Middle Aged Men' and Stuart Maconie's 'Pies And Prejudice', which had been cruelly misplaced on a book shelf for some time. Sweet work from the chap, who can be wry or involved when it suits.

My fave though was 'The Ask' by Sam Lipsyte, former frontman of Dungbeetle and a mate of James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem. It's about the infernal world of a professional fund-raiser in New York, a bluster of intent, lies and under-achievement.

The main guy is Milo Burke, a vivid chancer, a failed artist and rubbish family man. He is heroic in his own awful way, like Sam Giametti's lurid character in Sideways. The background is collapsing economies and vacuous Noughties pop culture but the voice has the classic verve of Philip Roth and Joseph Heller. Ask is the measure of an age and I laughed often.

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