I have enjoyed Sam Lipsyte's previous books because he writes funny, inventive, and clever prose. This book follows along and is mostly comic but has a good take on the time(1993). Jonathan Liptak(alias Jack Shit) is a 24 year old bass player in a band called the Shits. He is from New Jersey and is living in the lower east side. The plot surrounds the lead singer, the Earl, who has gone missing along with Jack's prized bass. What follows is Jack and a cast of colorful characters trying to find the Earl. Along the way the plot gets into the music scene, the powerful versus the have nots, and the times. We even have the use of Donald Trump(the corrupt non bill paying version) introduced into the book. Lots of cultural references from the 70s on and for those of a certain age, this will bring you back. Anyone who loves music should read this book. Hey, he makes a referee to the MC5 and if you know who that is then read this book. Only 220 pages so not a large time investment. If you like this then check out Lipsyte's other books. Very good. ( )

When I look back on the different versions of myself I was at age 15, 20, 25, my risk-taking years, the risks I took look unnerving, exhilarating, and stupid. I don't think my risk-taking was particular more dangerous than that of other young primates. I did like climbing up the outsides of multi-story buildings, lowering myself out of windows on sheets tied together ("in case I'm ever in prison"), and occasionally cross-dressing and going to punk clubs with friends.

This brief look back is a digressive way of opening my review, but the point is that a huge proportion of us primates seem to want (need?) to take risks—and, of course, we do that at a time when we're not really capable of clearly seeing the risks of those risks. I give thanks regularly that I've never had children, so I don't have to watch then doing the idiotic things I did a) because they're idiotic and b) because, as a matter of fact, not everyone makes it safely to the other side of those risk-taking years. It's a crap-shoot.

No One Left to Come Looking for You, by Sam Lipsyte, features a group of young, mostly just-out-of-college young people living in SoHo in 1993, the year Bill Clinton was inaugurated for his first term as President. They have fall-back options—parents in New Jersey or the midwest most significantly. But what they're doing in New York is trying to live out their dreams of being true punk rockers in what is becoming a post-punk world. They're quite smart (college degrees), but also stupid as all get-out (pumping up the endorphins by throwing themselves heroically into all sorts of risk-taking). In other words, they're typical of a significant proportion of the population of early 90s twenty-somethings.

I'm taking time with this set-up because what stood out for me in this novel wasn't the plot—though there's quite a good one involving a stolen bass, a singer at risk of OD-ing, a gig that may or may not get pulled off, a body guard/thug of Donald Trump's doing some "fixing" that may involve these young people. The plot is just fine. It works well. It keeps things moving. But the real momentum in this novel comes from who the central characters are and the particular point in their lives they are at when we get to observe then, thanks to Lipsyte. The energy, engagement, contradictions and cognitive dissonance that this crew brings with them is so monumental and draws readers' attention so compellingly that the plot is really a sort of very good bonus item.

Depending on who who are—parent/non-parent, young/old, bi-coastal/central, a survivor of the risk-taking years/someone who feels powerless in the face of the risk-taking being chosen by those around them, disciple of punk/or mainstream rocker—you will love or hate this book. And any member of any of those pairings could wind up on either side of the like/dislike line. When you're ready to speed up and run a motorcycle over railroad tracks (or whatever your equivalent of that is), this book will give you a good ride without any risks taken except, perhaps, the risk of a reading light falling on your head.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus; the opinions are my own. ( )

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A darkly comic mystery by the author of Hark and The Ask set in the vibrant music scene of early 1990s New York City.

Manhattan’s East Village, 1993. Dive bars, DIY music venues, shady weirdos, and hard drugs are plentiful. Crime is high but rent is low, luring hopeful, creative kids from sleepy suburbs around the country.

One of these is Jack S., a young New Jersey rock musician. Just a few days before his band’s biggest gig, their lead singer goes missing with Jack’s prized bass, presumably to hock it to feed his junk habit. Jack’s search for his buddy uncovers a sinister entanglement of crimes tied to local real estate barons looking to remake New York City—and who might also be connected to the recent death of Jack’s punk rock mentor. Along the way, Jack encounters a cast of colorful characters, including a bewitching, quick-witted scenester who favors dressing in a nurse’s outfit, a monstrous hired killer with a devotion to both figure skating and edged weapons, a deranged if prophetic postwar novelist, and a tough-talking cop who fancies himself a retro-cool icon of the homicide squad but is harboring a surprising secret.

No One Left to Come Looking for You is a page-turning suspense novel that also serves as a love letter to a bygone era of New York City where young artists could still afford to chase their dreams.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Coming home to my era of Manhattan living in this story was a pleasure. It has Author Lipsyte's requisite snarky, biting wit. It felt like I was back in the after-hours club post-Save the Robots listening to the coke-fueled motormouthing. Oh my...I've said too much.

But it's true, this is the way it felt, and looked, and even smelled.

What I think makes this a good read, then, is its way of being in harmony with my own memories. It's an evocation of a vanished time and place. So how will it hit someone whose memories aren't like mine?

Right on the funny bone.

Later, we go get a drink at the Jew-Hater's bar.

The merry old pogromist, with his lovely shock of alabaster hair and craggy fascist visage, pours us free shots with our beers. Maybe he means to lubricate his audience.

"The Yids, they cut the penis," he says, casual, as though relaying news of an off-season baseball trade. ... "God makes people perfect. The penis, perfect. Why cut it up? Only the Yid thinks of that."

The bland face of evil, played for a few yuks...if you're going to work as this book's audience, you'll need to see that as humor. Offensive and crass and humorous.

Otherwise this isn't a story I think you'll get into. And you'll need to want to get into it...the blizzard at the end of the book needs to feel like we felt then, a suspended moment of possibility, a confusing intersection of many corners all hidden behind drifts and shockingly cold winds forcing your face away from the way you started out wanting to go. That moment in the narrator's life was one where there were many ways to go. He went too far away from the one he thought he wanted and it took a blizzard to show him where he had to be.

Author Lipsyte won't be going back to the days of wine and roses, as the old saying has it; he's fifty-four now, and this story just couldn't come from anyone not fifty-four. My viewpoint, ten years ahead of him, was different enough to make this fun trip to a time I loved familiar enough. I wouldn't have seen it from this angle but it was still speaking to me.

Over forty-five? Give this a read today. What else is that gift card for if not to try to time travel? ( )

Slight, disappointing (this author used to be much better), and not recommended. ( )

No One Left to Come Looking for You tells the story of Jack S**t, a struggling musician living in New York in 1993. Jack is trying to track down his bass guitar (along with his band's lead singer), and he runs into a fascinating cast of characters while trying to track them down.

The book exhibits Sam Lipsyte's trademark humor and does a great job of putting us into a bygone world of 1990s-era New York. Definitely a fun read!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. ( )