Home land

Welcome to the most twisted high-school reunion imaginable, from a rising star of American satire. 'It's confession time, fellow alumni. Ever since Principal Fontana found me and commenced to bless my mail slot, monthly, with the Eastern Valley High School Alumni Newsletter, I've been meaning to pen my update.

Sad to say, vanity slowed my hand. Let a fever for the truth speed it now. Let me stand on the rooftop of my reckoning and shout naught but the indisputable: I did not pan out.' The Eastern Valley High School alumni newsletter, Catamount Notes, is bursting with tales of success: we've got a bankable politician and a famous baseball star, not to mention a major label recording artist. And then there is the appalling, somewhat bitter and yet entirely loveable Lewis Miner, class of '89 -- who did not pan out.

From perhaps the most gifted of the younger generation of US satirical novelists, Home Land is a marvel of playful prose and sustained invention -- and very, very funny.