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£7.99
Published
16 February 2011
PB
9781906964573
Ebook
9781906964481
Press Release
Coming soon.
 

Milo Burke – husband to a ‘touched-out’ wife, father to a three-year-old son, fund-raising officer at a third-tier university – has just joined the swelling ranks of the unemployed. As he grasps after odd jobs to support his wife and child, Milo is contacted by Purdy Stuart, a wealthy, one-time university friend with a sinister agenda. It is the start of a hilarious and harrowing odyssey through several degrees of peculiarly 21st-century hell – a journey recorded by Milo with the caustic eloquence that is his only means of defence.

Hailed as the first great ‘post-Iraq’ novel, The Ask has been a critical sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. It is a dazzlingly entertaining read that anatomises our crisis-ridden times with equal part ferocity and compassion.

Old Street Publishing The Ask

Milo Burke – husband to a ‘touched-out’ wife, father to a three-year-old son, fund-raising officer at a third-tier university – has just joined the swelling ranks of the unemployed. As he grasps after odd jobs to support his wife and child, Milo is contacted by Purdy Stuart, a wealthy, one-time university friend with a sinister agenda. It is the start of a hilarious and harrowing odyssey through several degrees of peculiarly 21st-century hell – a journey recorded by Milo with the caustic eloquence that is his only means of defence.

Hailed as the first great ‘post-Iraq’ novel, The Ask has been a critical sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. It is a dazzlingly entertaining read that anatomises our crisis-ridden times with equal part ferocity and compassion.

 7.99
 
 

"One of the funniest and most straight-out brilliant novels of the last few years"
—Guardian

 
 
  • "Hysterically funny . . . amazing . . . it affords breathtaking views of the social landscape of "late capitalism""
    —Observer
  • "that rare thing . . . a proper comic novel"
    —The Times
  • "Incandescently written . . . you have to go back to Joseph Heller in his prime to find writing this energised"
    —The Sunday Times
  • "Made me snort out laughing on the Tube in a really embarrassing way . . . Milo is possibly the smartest satirical character you'll come across"
    —Literary Review
  • "No novel caught the zeitgeist better . . . It cuts to the sad heart of our age"
    —Evening Standard
 
 

Sam Lipsyte was born in 1968. He is the author of the short story collection Venus Drive and two novels: The Subject Steve and Home Land, which – along with The Ask – was a New York Times Notable Book. He lives in New York.