If Gwyneth Paltrow was a wiry, 
indiscriminately-aged young man 
with the heart of a prophet and the 
social skills of a well-trained ferret, 
the result would most definitely be 
Hark Morner, the titular character 
of Sam Lipsyte’s new novel “Hark.” 
When I initially picked this book up 
off the Arts desk a few weeks ago, 
the rest of the writers were both 
shocked and delighted that someone 
had decided to dive into its bizarre 
mythos. And boy, was it bizarre.
“Hark” is, without a doubt, one of 
the weirdest books I’ve ever read. Off 
the heels of his critically acclaimed 
2004 novel “Home Land” and its 
2010 follow-up “The Ask,” Lipsyte 
has 
established 
himself 
in 
the 
literary world as a sort of satire boy 
genius, continuously challenging 
his readers with underdog male 
leads in scenarios that mirror our 
own world, through a slightly off-
kilter lens. Lipsyte’s writing is just 
as funny as it is uncomfortable, an 
uncanny valley version of today’s 
insane realities. The novel is equal 
parts social commentary and vehicle 
for Lipsyte’s most fascinating fever 
dreams: a fictional “Army of the 
Just” wages an anti-capitalist war 
in Europe next to a talking catfish.
“Hark” surprisingly does not focus 
its narrative around Hark Morner 
himself, but instead on his loyal 
sidekick and spiritual convert Fraz, 
a middle-aged man caught in both 
the whirlwind of Hark’s mythology 

and also a brutal midlife crisis. 
This mythology, named “Mental 
Archery” 
in 
a 
tongue-in-
cheek nod to 
the new-agey 
practices 
of 
today’s health 
nuts, is never 
explained 
in 
full 
detail 
throughout 
the 
book’s 
284 
pages. 
We 
hear 
of 
a 
practice 
called 
“stringing 
the 
bow,” 
get a hint of 
“The Archer’s 
Paradox,” 
hear 
Hark’s 
call to “focus 
on focus” an 
estimated 
hundreds 
of 
times, 
but 
never 
crack 
the surface of 
the 
pseudo-
religion’s 
jargon 
to 
see 
what’s 
underneath.
Instead, the 
antics of Hark 
Morner 
and 
those around 
him function 
as 
whatever 
the 
reader 
imagines them to be, heightening 
the satire of “Hark” to a hectic 

reflection of its audience’s personal 
opinions on the modern era. The 
novel 
almost 
entirely 
operates on metaphor and 
allusion, its foundational 
ideology resting on the 
backs of proverbs like that 
of William Tell shooting 
an apple off a boy’s head, 
of armies tightening their 
bows in battle hundreds 
of years ago, of anything 
and everything archery-
related in the least. “Hark” 
is a narrative wrapped up 
in itself to the maximum 
extent, an arguable feat in 
world-building that works 
to both the story’s benefit 
and disadvantage.
The 
banter 
between 
Fraz, 
Hark 
and 
the 
various cast members that 
Lipsyte attaches to their 
cause along the way is a 
definitive 
highlight 
of 
this world, full of insane 
phrases 
that 
require 
several 
reads 
to 
fully 
understand, 
but 
work 
nonetheless. Right around 
the novel’s midpoint, there 
is an exchange between 
Fraz and one of these 
random 
players, 
Seth: 
“‘Fraz, isn’t a fool,’ Seth 
says, ‘He’s a jester. And 
every smart king needs 
one.’” After Hark offers 
a rebuttal, Fraz explains 
that he is “just a troubled 
bitch.”
This small excerpt of dialogue 
can give anyone the jist of what 

“Hark” is at its core: a brutally 
honest depiction of life among the 
chaos of the modern world. In a 
traditional narrative Fraz would 
be a kingmaker (and is heralded as 
one 
by 
Hark’s 
devotees 
later 
in 
the 
story), 
but here he is 
merely 
a 
guy 
trying not to lose 
his mind in the 
midst of people 
just as crazy, if 
not more, than 
himself. 
In 
Fraz’s 
unhappy 
and 
seemingly 
aimless 
journey 
through 
time, 
the 
novel 
presents a kind 
of eternal male 
shrug found in 
work like David 
Foster Wallace’s 
“Infinite 
Jest,” 
and not in a good 
way. 
Though 
there are bright 
spots within the 
pages of “Hark,” 
the 
desperation 
that hides behind 
each 
character 
hangs over the 
narrative like a 
dark cloud.
The 
base 
elements 
of 
“Hark,” if assembled correctly, could 
have made a hilarious and poignant 
story much like Lipsyte’s own “The 
Ask,” one that balances its brutish 

humor with interesting ideas and 
concepts. Yet the novel stumbles 
too many times for this to fully 
work. There is a difference between 
making a reader uncomfortable for 
a 
predestined 
purpose 
and 
prolonging 
their confusion 
for 
seemingly 
no 
reason 
but 
to 
mess 
with 
their 
perceptions. 
“Hark” 
does 
not walk this 
line carefully, 
and veers from 
solid 
satire 
into 
sad-boy 
sincerity 
in 
a 
zigzagged 
pattern 
that 
is 
nearly 
impossible 
to walk as a 
reader. 
The 
book may be 
a 
product 
of 
our 
time, 
of 
the 
desperate 
clamor 
that 
many 
artists 
feel 
to 
make 
something 
relevant 
to 
the 
current 
political 
and 
social climate. 
Except Lipsyte 
is too obvious in this desire, and it 
is the crux that the value of “Hark” 
balances on, teetering back and 
forth until it falls.

“Hark”

Sam Lipsyte

Simon & Schuster

Jan. 15, 2019

BOOK REVIEW
‘Hark’ is what happens when a Sad Boy, satire and 
misguided sincerity walk into a hip, new juice bar

CLARA SCOTT
Senior Arts Editor

In 
a 
desperate 
attempt 
to become even more of a 
caricature of yourself, you 
decide to buy a record player. 
With this record player you 
will officially become defined 
by your owning said record 
player. You talk only of your 
recent record acquisitions and 
how great it feels to buy music 
again after stealing it for so 
many years. You pretend to 
like Jazz because it sounds 
like something that should 
be played on a record player 
and because Ryan Gosling 
tried to save it. You hide your 
speaker from plain sight — if 
you don’t own the record, it 
doesn’t deserve to be heard. 
You acquire a vast collection 
of comedy records to show 
people you have interesting 
interests. You listen to Joan 
Rivers before she got old and 
mean, just mean. You drink 
wine. You do this a lot. 
You post carefully curated 
Instagram stories of your 
ever-expanding 
record 
collection, posing them next 
to your candles and fairy 
lights to create the perfect 
#ambience. You dedicate a 
corner of your room for your 
record player. This corner 
is very cozy. You name your 
record player. The name of 
your record player is Madam 
Spinster. You and Madam 
Spinster spend many evenings 
cuddled together alongside 
Ella Fitzgerald and Julian 
Casablancas. 
One day, Netflix reminds 
you that the new Ted Bundy 
documentary series is out. You 
watch all of season one in one 
day. You have trouble falling 
asleep because you are equal 
parts terrified of and attracted 
to the notorious serial killer. 
You eventually fall asleep 
to Madame Spinster playing 
“The Graduate” soundtrack.
You 
go 
home 
for 
the 
weekend and stumble across 
your 
father’s 
old 
record 
collection. You see a lot of 
Tom Petty, then some Rolling 
Stones, then some more Tom 
Petty. You grab the good 
ones, some David Bowie, a 
Bob Dylan, leave the Tom 
Petty — your dad has a thing 
for him, you guess. You grab 

a Beatles “White Album,” 
feeling like you scored the 
damn lottery. When you get 
home you place the record 
leaning against your dear 
Madam 
Spinster 
in 
eager 
hesitation. You go to class. 
You think of “Hey Jude.” You 
buy an expensive coffee. You 

play “Blackbird” on Spotify. 
When you get home you make 

a steaming mug of tea, kick 
off your snow-covered boots 
and slip into your fuzzy-ass 
slippers that make your feet 
feel equally sweaty and cozy. 
You take the “White Album” 
and ease the record out of its 
case only to discover it is not 
The Beatles’s “White Album” 
but Tom Petty’s Damn the 
Torpedoes.
You pass up plans to go to 
Rick’s in order to hang out 
with Madame Spinster and 
Tom Petty. You are starting to 
like him. You tell your friends 
you are — cough, cough — 
sick. You miss Sunday brunch 
even though you woke up 
at seven, went to the gym 
and then sent 28 emails. It’s 
Monday and you figure there 
is no point leaving the house 
in this weather, this climate, 
this economy. So, you stay 
in, contemplating Nabokov’s 
essays on “Don Quixote” and 
listening to Chopin records. 
You spend 100 dollars on a 
rare Tom Petty album from 
eBay. 
You discover your hair is 
turning a sophisticated grey. 
You find that your wardrobe is 
made up solely of black button 
downs and Ferragamo loafers. 
Your socks are all mismatched 
because you can no longer 
tell what is navy and what is 
black, they just look too damn 
similar. You need bifocals. You 
read James Joyce for fun. You 
complain about your back pain 
and blame it on all those years 
of tennis from way back when. 
You make a photo montage 
of your family vacation to 
Aruba set to Tom Petty’s 
“American Girl.” You send 
links to articles to your family 
group chat with comments 
like “Interesting read!” or 
“Thought you’d appreciate!” 
You 
start 
smoking, 
not 
cigarettes or weed, but cigars 
– expensive ones, Cuban ones. 
The Wall Street Journal starts 
coming to your door every day 
and you don’t know why, but 
you read it, cover to cover. 
You spend 400 dollars on U2 
tickets in Chicago. You don’t 
live in Chicago. 
And then it hits you, like 
the golf clubs you got for early 
retirement. You have become 

It is quite cold outside. You 
are going to listen to vinyl.

DAILY HUMOR COLUMN

BECKY 
PORTMAN

The worst day in American stock market history 
was not in 1929, as one might expect. It actually 
came in Oct. of 1987 — a day dubbed Black Monday, 
when the Dow fell a steep, devastating 22 percent. 
The crash began in Hong Kong, snaked through 
Europe and continued west, an early example 
of the complications posed by a contemporary 
globalized financial system. Nothing, not 9/11 nor 
the collapse of Lehman, has ever eclipsed Black 
Monday, or even come close.
When the dust settled, it wasn’t entirely 
obvious what caused Black 
Monday. 
Computerized 
trading is a popular suspected 
culprit. Others point to the 
weak 
dollar 
or 
previous 
overvaluation. 
There 
isn’t 
one clear, satisfying answer. 
“Until now,” says the opening 
sequence 
of 
Showtime’s 
“Black Monday,” a new gonzo 
comedy set a year prior to the 
crash that promises its own 
imagined explanation.
Mo Monroe (Don Cheadle, 
“Hotel Rwanda”) is the scrappy founder of The 
Jammer Group, an underdog Wall Street firm that 
employs a boorish, ragtag bunch. To orchestrate a 
hostile takeover of the lucrative Georgina Jeans, 
Mo hires the wide-eyed Blair Plaff (Andrew 
Rannells, “Girls”), fresh out of Wharton with 
an algorithm that’s the talk of the trading floor. 
Dawn, the firm’s head trader and lone woman, 
played by the brilliant Regina Hall (“Support the 
Girls”) becomes a sort of audience surrogate who 
can roll her eyes at the frat bros of Wall Street and 
their excesses. And, oh boy, are there excesses. 
Lambo limo? Robot butler? Cocaine? Check, 
check, check.
There is something about ’80s greed that feels 

very interesting right now. Maybe it’s because 
the embodiment of that era currently sits in the 
White House. Or maybe it’s that this moment of 
personal brands and soulless influencer hustle 
seems sprung from a Reaganesque mythos of 
individual responsibility. But “Black Monday,” 
however prescient it could be, never manages to 
say anything insightful about the decade beyond 
big hair, Marion Barry, denim and “Let’s Make a 
Deal.”
Whatever this is, it isn’t a satirical period piece 
so much as it is an overly long “SNL” sketch, 
replete with tedious ’80s jokes and references, a 
few too many of which are anachronistic (Crystal 
Pepsi came out in 1992!). Several of them mine 
audience hindsight for their 
humor: In the second episode, 
a screenwriter shadows Mo as 
research for an untitled Oliver 
Stone movie about Wall Street. 
Deployed with more restraint, 
these would qualify as hidden 
Easter eggs. On this show, 
they’re akin to what might 
happen if Clayton Kershaw got 
his hands on a few cartons of 
Eggland’s Best and decided to 
practice his fastball.
This brand of television — 
surreal, chaotic, irreverent — could probably be 
very good. But “Black Monday” has few ambitions 
beyond shock value. There are some funny jokes, 
but even those are something of a statistical 
inevitability given the show’s joke density — the 
vast majority land flat. Tonally, “Black Monday” 
hasn’t quite decided who we’re supposed to care 
for and how much. And sure, this is difficult to do 
when your show is about inherently unsympathetic 
people in a much-despised industry. But littered 
across the TV landscape are successful examples 
— HBO’s “Succession,” even Showtime’s own 
“Billions.” The characters on those shows are by 
no means lovable, but at the very least, they’re 
worth investing in.

‘Black Monday’ is very OK

TV REVIEW

SHOWTIME

“Black Monday”

Pilot

Showtime

Sundays @ 10 p.m.

MAITREYI ANANTHARAMAN
Daily Arts Writer

You discover 
your hair is 
turning a 
sophisticated 
grey. You 
find that your 
wardrobe is 
made up solely 
of black button 
downs and 
Ferragamo 
loafers.

The book may 
be a product 
of our time, of 
the desperate 
clamor that many 
artists feel to 
make something 
relevant to the 
current political 
and social climate.

5A — Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

