Steve (although not his real name) is dying.
His terminal disease is the first of its kind, and he has no idea how much time he has left. Steve only knows he has Goldfarb-Blackstone Preparatory Extinction Syndrome PREXIS for short-and the disease has no known cure.
He is dying of boredom.
Sam Lipsyte’s first full-length novel, **The Subject Steve**, satirically mocks aspects of American society, ranging from mass media’s influence on culture to alternative medicine treatments. Lipsyte writes smoothly, his style seamlessly merging to create a tone both cynical and innocent, perfectly narrating Steve’s exploits as he copes with his terminal illness.
Two ‘doctors’ known as the Mechanic and the Philosopher first diagnose Steve with PREXIS. The story about this newly discovered disease draws a great deal of media attention, and Steve quits his job, cleans his apartment and warns his friend (he only has one) and family (his ‘disaffected’ teenage daughter and ex-wife) about his upcoming death. However, when the media expose the Mechanic and the Philosopher as frauds, Steve searches elsewhere for treatment for his disease.
He ends up at a The Center for Nondenominational Recovery and Redemption, an alternative medical facility, in the care of Heinrich of Newark. Steve subsequently escapes from Heinrich’s ‘treatment’ better classified as abuse-and returns to civilization, only to find himself in the desert at the Realm, the offspring of Heinrich’s original care facility.
Although the story line includes numerous bizarre twists, Lipsyte manages to give his plot credibility through his writing. Lipsyte does not overexaggerate his characters to the point of seeming one-dimensional or unlikable. He gives the main characters distinct personalities that enhance the novel’s humor. Steve’s over-sexualized fourteen-year-old daughter Fiona, for example, gives a graphic, ranting soliloquy about her sex life as Steve indifferently listens.
Lipsyte’s subtle use of humor succeeds in portraying Steve as an ordinary man enjoying himself while navigating a world of strange characters and places, in search of the cure for PREXIS. At times, Steve seems more interested in the attention he receives in being ‘the Subject Steve,’ the man with the strange, new disease, than in actually finding treatment for it.
‘Me, I was on the uptick, the pain on slow fade, a new feeling in my veins, a deep living slither. People would be disappointed. I began to flutter my eyelids a bit, affect a weak grip, mutter cryptic phrases tinged with tiny history, a Dutch Schultz delirium of baby talk and birch nest slaughter,’ Steve says.
Lipsyte falters slightly in some of his descriptions of Heinrich’s treatment center and its patients. He introduces countless quirky characters in a rapid-fire procession, making it difficult to distinguish one from another. Steve meets Old Gold, the man who drives him to the center; Trubate, Steve’s roommate; and DaShawn, who always wears eighteenth-century English infantryman uniforms, among many other characters. Lipsyte’s sparse descriptions of these characters often make them seem interchangeable.
When Steve first learns about his illness, he thinks, ‘Let me live! Banish me, shun me, shoo me away, argue me off, but let me…live!’ Ultimately, Steve’s story has nothing to do with his death. Rather, Steve lives his supposed last days to the fullest, at the excuse of his inevitable death.
And **the Subject Steve** lives a cynical, intelligent and often hilarious life.
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