VOTES FOR HOME LAND

Karl Iagnemma ... robotics researcher, and author of the short story collection On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction. writing included in Best Amer Erotica & Best Amer Short Stories. www.karliagnemma.com ....
Home Land is funny, ridiculous, mundane, juvenile, insightful, prosaic, and honest. It’s not profound or meaningful, but then it doesn’t try to be profound or meaningful. The Accidental is intriguing, impressive, stilted, insightful, tiring, and disappointing. It works hard to seem meaningful, which is a shame. Is Home Land the best book of fiction published this year? Seems somewhat hard to believe. Nonetheless, Home Land should win the cock.
this is the take I expected: stilted vs ridiculous, with the latter winning for honesty.

Mark Sarvas ... host of the popular and controversial literary weblog "The Elegant Variation" ...
I love a surprise upset and, with the final pairing of Home Land against The Accidental, I couldn’t help but imagine what a dramatic flourish it would be if I were to disavow my earlier round choice. And the glowing praise heaped upon The Accidental from all quarters, coupled with my enjoyment of Smith’s earlier book, Hotel World, set the stage for a flip-flop of earthshaking proportions. The Accidental certainly starts off promisingly enough, offering the kind of dense, chewy literary read that I enjoy. But I gradually began to chafe under what felt like the book’s self-consciously airless high style. In the end, the bawdy, straightforward charms of Home Land proved too potent to resist. Or perhaps I just have a soft spot for misfits. My choice: Home Land.

Anthony Doerr ... author of The Shell Collector, a collection of stories, and About Grace, a novel.... <look into
Class reunions, masturbation, murder with a mace. Aborted suicide, ottava rima, a philandering professor. Hmmm… But you have to decide: Is this apple the tastiest apple it can be? Could you plunge a striped straw into the bowels of this orange and suck out its sweet, sweet nectar? No, and no. Both writers are obviously in love with language, which is wonderful, but these novels are not Moby Dick. Still, Lipsyte dives into English and wrecks it and exalts it in his own filthy way. If either book deserves an angry cock stuffed into a crate, it’s Home Land. nice: apple, orange.

Andrew Womack ...Morning News co-editor...
Though I loved The Accidental and Ali Smith’s emotional, variegated writing—of her and Lipsyte, she is the superior "writer"—in the end I believe Home Land to be the better book. I believe the novels are comparable: Where Smith is magical, Lipsyte is surreal; where you hope for The Accidental’s characters, you laugh at Lipsyte’s. But, for me, where Home Land truly nosed ahead was in the novel’s final movements, when I really, truly started hoping for him. Plus, that ending? Unexpected and—I won’t tell you what. But I will say that I re-read it 10 times.

Brigid Hughes ... founding ed A Public Space, new magazine debuted Febr06, prev exec ed The Paris Review....
I’m sticking with Home Land. I know Ali Smith has her fans, but I’ve always had trouble with her work. And The Accidental was no exception. At least for me, it reads like it’s trying too hard. Home Land is at the opposite end of that spectrum—whatever its flaws, I was glad to be too busy with the characters and their stories to notice the writer behind it all. Three cheers for Home Land.

Maud Newton ... editor, writer and blogger ...
Ali Smith’s The Accidental reads like nothing of the kind. Despite the whimsical stream-of-consciousness narration, an atmosphere of contrivance predominates and the arrival of a carpe diem guru clinches it. Of the four primary characters, only the depressive son comes alive. A more accurate title for this book, unfortunately, might be The Artificial. I’ll take Home Land.

Choire Sicha ... a senior editor New York Observer, the pink sassy paper that comes out on Wednesdays and is totally awesome ...
Did I finish reading either one of these books? Hell no. Is that shabby? Fully! But I just didn’t want to. And is there any pleasure greater than not finishing a book you’re not in love with? (Perhaps unsubscribing your TiVo from a show you’ve come to hate. Or beating your TV with a hammer.) The Lipsyte book made me laugh, though so, hooray, it gets my lame-ass vote.