The Ask

"New technology, new markets, global interconnectivity, doesn't matter," veteran fixer Leo Moss says to neophyte Milo Burke in this darkly comic novel by Sam Lipsyte. "It's still the rulers and the ruled." Lipsyte considers "late capitalism" through Burke -- a college development officer -- and his relationship with new-media titan Purdy Stuart, who makes the book sing. "Do you realize that one day we'll be heating our houses with trout?" Stuart tells Burke. "Is that one of the ideas at the...