Five top bilious, seriocomic novels

Sam Lipsyte is the author of Venus Drive, The Subject Steve, Home Land, and The Ask, the latter two New York Times Notable Books. He won the first annual Believer Book Award and was a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow. Lipsyte's new book is The Fun Parts, a collection of stories.

One of his five favorite humorous yet weighty novels, as told to The Daily Beast:

Peru
by Gordon Lish

Just reissued, this American classic tells the story of young Gordon, who, in 1940, murders Steven Adinoff in Andy Lieblich’s sandbox. It’s a brilliant, terrifying book about violence, language, and memory’s ever-mutating loop. A current of wild, uncompromising humor runs through it all.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue