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Summary
Summary
A brilliant send-up of our contemporary culture from Sam Lipsyte, the critically acclaimed author of Home Land , centered around an unwitting mindfulness guru and the phenomenon he initiates.
In an America convulsed by political upheaval, cultural discord, environmental collapse, and spiritual confusion, many folks are searching for peace, salvation, and--perhaps most immediately--just a little damn focus. Enter Hark Morner, an unwitting guru whose technique of "Mental Archery"--a combination of mindfulness, mythology, fake history, yoga, and, well, archery--is set to captivate the masses and raise him to near-messiah status. It's a role he never asked for, and one he is woefully underprepared to take on. But his inner-circle of modern pilgrims have other plans, as do some suddenly powerful fringe players, including a renegade Ivy League ethicist, a gentle Swedish kidnapper, a crossbow-hunting veteran of jungle drug wars, a social media tycoon with an empire on the skids, and a mysteriously influential (but undeniably slimy) catfish.
In this social satire of the highest order, Sam Lipsyte, the New York Times bestseller and master of the form, reaches new peaks of daring in a novel that revels in contemporary absurdity and the wild poetry of everyday language while exploring the emotional truths of his characters. Hark is a smart, incisive look at men, women, and children seeking meaning and dignity in a chaotic, ridiculous, and often dangerous world.
Author Notes
Sam Lipsyte is the author of the story collections Venus Drive and The Fun Parts and four novels: Hark , The Ask ( a New York Times Notable Book), The Subject Steve , and Home Land , which was a New York Times Notable Book and received the Believer Book Award. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker , The Paris Review , and Best American Short Stories , among other places. The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, he lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Lipsyte (The Fun Parts) pillories the mindfulness movement in this acerbic and surprisingly moving novel of a hesitant guru and his self-involved inner circle. Failed comic Hark Morner writes a book and launches an unexpected craze for "mental archery," a practice combining disconnected ramblings of invented history, opaque aphorisms, and yogalike poses. Among his devoted inner circle are Kate, an aimless and wealthy 20-something who finances the movement; Teal, a convicted embezzler and unlicensed marriage therapist; and Fraz, a middle-aged man disappointed by his career stagnation and tense marriage. Hark rejects their schemes to monetize his teachings and offers only oblique answers to questions, saying that the only point is to focus. Facing pressures from tech magnate Dieter Delgado, who wants to co-opt mental archery, Hark retreats to the Upstate New York home of true believer Meg. When Fraz accidentally injures his young daughter, he pleads for Hark to call for a worldwide focus to help her survive a coma, leading to a wild conclusion an unexpected denouement. This is a searing exploration of desperate hopes, and Lipsyte's potent blend of spot-on satire, menacing bit players, and deadpan humor will delight readers. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
A mindfulness guru and the seekers who surround him animate this comic meditation on technology, authenticity, and end-times anxiety by celebrated satirist Lipsyte (The Ask, 2010). It's not that Hark, peddler of koan-like wisdom on the theme of mental archery, has all the answers. On stage at corporate gigs, or online at Hark Hub, mostly he's just free-associating, riffing on bow-and-arrow metaphors, exploring (and perhaps exploiting) the overlap between the vague and the profound. Yet to his followers slacker-dad Fraz; road-team Seth and Teal; Kate, an accidental murderer; the mysterious Meg217 Harkism is a lifeline, the chance to master their private biospheres of panic and decay. Lipsyte suggests that Hark may be a huckster, unworthy of his disciples' devotion, but his most heartfelt concerns crystallize around Fraz, who, despite his proximity to Hark, cannot resuscitate his marriage or save his kids from a degraded, distracted future. Lots of characters and a jumbly plot make for a clamorous read. But Lipsyte also offers high-velocity moments in which bleakness and humor, the quotidian and the apocalyptic all gloriously converge.--Brendan Driscoll Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THE HEARTBEAT OF WOUNDED KNEE: Native America From 1890 to the Present, by David Treuer. (Riverhead, $28.) This response to Dee Brown's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" highlights the numerous achievements of Native Americans over the past century, and celebrates their resilience and adaptability in the face of prejudice, violence and the many other obstacles placed in their way. HARK, by Sam Lipsyte. (Simon & Schuster, $27.) The attraction and repulsion between a would-be messiah and his apostle anchors this madcap skewering of contemporary culture packed with fake gurus, cheating spouses, junk-food obsessions and yoga. INHERITANCE: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love, by Dani Shapiro. (Knopf, $24.95.) A DNA test submitted on a whim upends Shapiro's assumptions about her family history and forms the basis for her new book, a searching exploration of the power of blood ties to shape our sense of who we are. AN ORCHESTRA OF MINORITIES, by Chigozie Obioma. (Little, Brown, $28.) A sweeping epic centered on a fraught romance between a humble poultry farmer and the daughter of a prosperous chief, Obioma's new novel travels from rural Nigeria to Cyprus and to the cosmic domain of the Igbo guardian spirit who watches over and recounts the proceedings. ARISTOTLE'S WAY: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life, by Edith Hall. (Penguin Press, $27.) Aristotle was concerned with how to achieve a virtuous, happy life. Hall sees his answer as a source of great comfort, his most important insight being that people need to find their own purpose and search out a middle way - "nothing in excess," the philosopher said. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO FANNIE DAVIS: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers, by Bridgett M. Davis. (Little, Brown, $28.) Davis's heartwarming memoir honors her remarkable mother, who made a good life for her family in the '60s and '70s. THE FALCONER, by Dana Czapnik. (Atria, $25.) In this electric debut novel, 17-year-old Lucy's coming-of-age is powerfully shaped by her encounters with basketball and New York City itself, even as she constantly brushes up against the constrictions society places on her sex. IN MY MIND'S EYE: A Thought Diary, by Jan Morris. (Liveright, $24.95.) The beloved nonagenarian writer shares a year of observations - of herself and of the changes she's observed. TO NIGHT OWL FROM DOGFISH, by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg Wolitzer. (Dial, $17.99; ages 9 to 12.) Told in a series of frantic emails and other correspondence, this hilarious novel follows two girls who have never met - one in California, one in New York - who learn that their single dads plan to marry each other. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Guardian Review
A standup comic peddles fake spiritualism to tech executives in this sharply comical novel from the author of The Ask As I write this an app is running on both my laptop and phone, promising me mental clarity and relief from distraction. It's an internet-blocker called Freedom, that great American ideal: the word conjures up bald eagles soaring through the air, profound life decisions, sweeping Jonathan Franzen novels. The lengths we will go to in order simply to put down our phones! It's as if we're all trapped in collective rehab. The situation is ripe for dark parody, and over the last decade nobody has skewered the absurdities and endless humiliations of technology and late capitalism better than Sam Lipsyte. In his hysterically funny 2010 novel The Ask , he gave us Milo Burke, a loser drowning in a mediocre job, suffering through a failing marriage, who is forced into contact with a powerful and wealthy man. He also gave us some of the funniest sentences of the last decade, with jokes that landed. He returns with a similar premise in Hark , but while his target is still the indignity of simply being alive, his new novel is a little crowded. Hark is a deadpan standup comic turned monosyllabic messiah peddling spiritualism to tech bros. What began as a joke has now, in desperate times, become a new faith known as Harkism. His merry crew of idiot disciples trails in his wake as he preaches the lamest, goofiest form of salvation possible - "mental archery", combining yoga with bow and arrow technique. A sample of his teachings: The first arrow that hits you, that's the pain you can't control. That's the world doing its damage. But the second arrow, that's the damage you do to yourself, with your fear, your anxiety, with dwelling on precisely that which you can't control. As his disciples seek transcendence, working through their stretches and their archery poses, their lives fall apart. Fraz, Hark's right-hand man, struggles to gain the respect of his wife and his incredibly woke children. Kate, a recovering socialite, becomes embroiled in an organ harvesting scheme. Hark battles to maintain his inner calm. Everyone suffers a lot in this novel and, I have to say, it's a lot of fun. Lipsyte is at his absolute best, his most crushing and merciless, when his characters are going to pieces Lipsyte is at his absolute best, his most crushing and merciless, when his characters are going to pieces. It's a pure joy to read the diatribe Hark launches at a fictional version of the Web Summit, the largest tech conference in the world. It begins with him thanking the gathered crowd for their warm, affluent welcome and ends with him berating the "techpig confab". There is a major truth contained in his tirade: "I mean, sometimes it seems like you've got to be a serious con artist just to get your basic needs met." Hark is a novel-length lament for our "twitchy, reactive" modern times and a world that consistently rewards the brazen and unqualified. I'm giving the highest praise imaginable when I say that Lipsyte doesn't need plot to hold the reader's attention. In fact, how many writers alive are such good prose stylists that they can discard it altogether and still deliver an entertaining book? Lipsyte's sentences are so dizzyingly brilliant, so sharp and energetic, that the plot feels like the distraction, the noise you wish you could drown out. When Fraz's wife Tovah embarks on a brief, dispiritingly unromantic affair with Nat, a soulless tech billionaire, she describes the sex like this: "Not that Nat was any kind of pleasure wizard in bed, with his bony twitches and phlegm-flutter grunts, his strange chirps for her to 'get it' or 'take it', like it's an acorn, and he's some exotic and generous bird." Lipsyte is a smart writer, and he understands that the world has become tired of middle-aged white men - their fruitless plans, selfish desires and sexual hang-ups, the shtick that served him so well in The Ask . I think even Lipsyte himself is tired of it. At one point Fraz, his most Milo-esque character, thinks: "He's grown weary of his contrarian pose, tired of his schemes, the funny T-shirts, the penny stocks." We've witnessed the dark hearts under the schlubby plaid exteriors and there is no return. By turning away from Fraz to feature such a large and eclectic cast of characters, Lipsyte is pre-empting such criticism. But though I admire his ambition, Hark is slightly unfocused. It was the discomfort and claustrophobia you felt as you plodded through life with the hapless Milo that made The Ask so singular. Even Lipsyte's volatile bitterness, and biting disgust at those wielding power, are not as forceful here. Lipsyte's characterisation might seem broad in that all his Silicon Valley billionaires are greedy megalomaniacs. Then again, the argument runs that they are all greedy megalomaniacs in real life too, so what can he do? My favourite character in the novel is a boorish, self-serving author who has turned a profit by writing books about being a "good father". It's the final irony that fatherhood is the very subject Lipsyte is best on. Underneath the frantic comic tone of Hark is a real sense of paternal care and love, and a genuine concern for the world we are leaving our children. Like a long marriage, there are writers you are committed to even when you are gently aware of their flaws. When I read work by Lipsyte - and his oeuvre also includes two fine story collections proving his gift for the sentence - I feel like Fraz with his long-suffering wife Tovah: "witty, kind, alert to the suffering of others". A few hours spent offline with Lipsyte is a worthwhile investment.
Kirkus Review
A reluctant messiah inspires people to focus in a time of chaos.Lipsyte (The Fun Parts: Stories, 2012, etc.) assembles a motley ensemble for his first novel since The Ask (2010) put him squarely on America's literary map, but it's mostly a sour, disaffecting experience that's reflective of our troubled times. The novel's central character is a guru-light type named Hark Morner who preaches a New Age-y discipline called "Mental Archery," a goofy combination of mindfulness, made-up history, some yoga, and visualizations based around archery. Unfortunately, Lipsyte assembles his story through the point of view of the supporting characters, most of whom are miserable misanthropes when they're not around Hark. The author's primary avatar is Frank "Fraz" Penzig, whose primary characteristics are being the "old guy" at 46 years old, locked in a miserable, combative marriage with his wife, Tovah, and father to two kids. Also floating around is their patron, Kate Rumpler, who's a felon due to having offed her pervert uncle and supremely rich since her parents crashed their private plane, and Teal Baker-Cassini, the intellectual who lends Hark's harebrained discipline some credibility. There are no real villains here, barring the tech titan who wants to commercialize Hark's movement and a weird cult that shows up late in the game to oppose it. As usual, Lipsyte's command of language is sublimeHark's directive to "Actuate the world" could come straight out of the Silicon Valley parodies that are so prolific latelybut the dubious premise and deeply unlikable characters sour the already-tart satire that the author is proposing. The book has its twists: After Hark has a meltdown in St. Louis and one of the cast members suffers a potentially heartbreaking grievance, there's an opportunity to shift the narrative to a more believable scenario, but instead the story descends into its own sad, inevitable stew of nonsense.Magical realism works great for some authors, but Lipsyte ends up closer to the ending of the television show Lost than to any substantial prosecution of contemporary society. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Hark Morner has developed something called mental archery, replete with bow-and-arrow allusions and 52 exercises/poses aimed at getting people to "focus"-although upon what Hark can't or won't say-and he becomes an unwitting guru when a small band of followers promote his program into a global phenomenon. In the near-future that serves as setting, the world is in apparent chaos (at least there's a massive ground war in Europe, with sides not clearly determined), and people grasp at any bit of hope, although the program certainly has its detractors. Hark, iconic and laconic, is content to coast along, only at the end recognizing that he has missed a broader mission. And the end? Hark is martyred (with an arrow, no less) just after he "raises" the daughter of his principle disciple, but the disciples suspect he is not "gone," and indeed he reappears at times, although not corporeally. Hints of a Christ story that floats around throughout the novel are more pronounced in the closing pages. VERDICT This work is clever but not as hilarious as advertised. The writing is fluid and stylish, and though a slow start might lose many readers, the pace does accelerate. Has Lipsyte (The Fun Parts) written a tonic for our times? Maybe. [See Prepub Alert, 7/16/18.]-Robert E. Brown, Oswego, NY © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Hark One Listen, before Hark, was it ever harder to be human? Was it ever harder to believe in our world? The weather made us wonder. The markets had, the wars. The rich had stopped pretending they were just the best of us, and not some utterly other form of life. The rest, the most, could glimpse their end on Earth, in the parched basins and roiling seas, but could not march against their masters. They slaughtered each other instead, retracted into glowing holes. Hark glowed, too. He came to us and was golden-y. It wasn't that Hark had the answer. It was more that he didn't. All he possessed, he claimed, were a few tricks, or tips, to help people focus. At work. At home. Out for coffee with a client, or a friend. (Listen, before Hark, was it ever harder to find focus?) Hark gathered his tips together, called it mental archery. Pretty silly, he liked to say. But some knew better. Some were certain he had a secret, a mystery, a miracle. For what was mental archery but the essence of Hark, and what was the essence of Hark but love? In this hurt world, how could that hurt? The hunters of meaning had found no meaning. The wanters of dreams were dreamless. Many now drifted toward Hark Morner. This is, like, the backstory. The front story is about a bunch of people and a movement they launched under the banner of Hark, a movement that maybe meant nothing at all. Or maybe it did mean something. It's tough to tell. The past is tricky, often half hidden, like a pale, flabby young man flung naked into a crowded square. The past doesn't stand there, grant ganders. The past clasps its crotch, scurries for the cover of stanchions, benches. History hides. That's its job. It hides behind other history. Fraz Penzig, one of the front-story people, knows all about it. He used to teach some history, though he hasn't taught it in a while, not since the middle school cut staff by a third. His wife, Tovah, told him that life is not a zero-sum game, but Fraz senses that if it were, he would be the zero sum. Lucky for him that Tovah is still employed. He's grateful for the medical, though he happens to have his health at the moment. Not that it's something you can ever truly own, or bequeath, like a house, or a houseboat, or a parcel of land in the hills, but Fraz does have his health. Oh, maybe he feels frail on occasion, a tad pulped, bones shot, frequently fevered, on the verge of the verge of death, but make no mistake, he's hardy. His twinges, his spasms, his stabby aches, they're chronic, like all the other minor hurts, the gym injuries, the sprains achieved mysteriously on the can. He's terminal, but not quite near the terminus. Like when he had that raisin on his head, went to the raisin doctor. "It's nothing," the doctor said. "Nothing?" "I mean it's something. It's just what people get. On the way down. You want I light-saber that bad boy off?" Also, forty-six years on this hard turd of a world and Fraz's mind is still, by his lights, pure silk. He knows younger types already fried, or brined, not just with drugs or booze, but merely from rising in the morning, moving about in their private biospheres of panic and decay, the hours at work, the hours of work at home, the hours of work with spouses, fathers, mothers, children, the stresses laced into the simplest tasks, the fight-or-flight responses to kitchen appliances, not to mention the mighty common domes, with which the individual bubbles Venn: the fouled sky, the polluted food, the pharma-fed rivers full of sad-eyed Oxytrout, the jeans on outlet shelves in their modalities of size--skinny fit, classic fit, fat shepherd fit, all dyed a deep cancer blue. And the wave rot, of course, the pixel-assisted suicide, the screens, the screens, the screens. Yes, Fraz is lucky, privileged, if you please, not just to be alive but to still live here, his locus, his home grove, the city that never sleeps, but paces its garret in a nervous rage, the city of his kin. Once he had some vague ambitions, semi-valuable skills. Now he tutors schoolkids part-time, does favors for an old friend of his late father. He's also lucky Tovah's affections don't hinge on his ability to generate revenue. Or maybe her affections hinge on nothing now. But fie on such wallow-world musings. Fie on these flurries of own-negs. Today he will shrug off the cape of self-hate. Fraz has upsides. He's a doting father. He's one of Hark's apostles. He spreads the word. Also, he's rich in nutrients, solid from the gym, with, despite a certain overspreading doughiness, some noteworthy detail on his tris and delts. Truth is, he'd rather be a male waif, but he got Jewed (he can say it) on the genetics. His narrow band of endomorphic choice will always come down to this: lard barn or semi-cut chunk. Today he's headed downtown for a meeting with the mental archery brain trust: Kate Rumpler, the young heiress who funds their institute; Teal Baker-Cassini, the discipline's leading intellectual light; and Hark Morner himself, their radiant, inscrutable guru. They will take their booth at the Chakra Khan, sip kale-and-peppermint toddies. They have much to discuss. Demonstration videos. Scheduled appearances. The True Arrow, a new feed on Hark Hub. Fraz wishes they could meet at a coffee bar, or a full-service bar, or a full-service meat cart. He likes the street meat, the tangy skewers. He doesn't mind the toddies. But the candles, the garden scents, menace his dainty machismo. Listen, such are the sacrifices one makes for the cause, for mental archery, for love. Excerpted from Hark by Sam Lipsyte All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.