The Slip

A big, bold, brave, brilliant beast of a novel. Uproarious and tender, epic in scope and intimate in portraiture, crammed with so many outlandish incidents and exquisitely rendered characters you'll wonder how one novel can possibly contain them all, but Schaefer pulls it off with aplomb. As fearless and enjoyable a debut as you're likely to read this year

Lit Hub

A sweaty masterpiece . . . Honestly, I haven’t felt quite like this about a book since I was dazzled by Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections almost 25 years ago. But despite his equally capacious reach, Schaefer is no Franzen wannabe. If anything, he’s looser, confident enough to be sweet, and despite his richly comic voice, this satiric tongue never develops fangs . . . I spent most of the week not just reading this story but cheering it on in a state of unhinged excitement

Washington Post

Franzen/Roth/Irving comparisons are earned and deserved... Not since Nathan Hill’s The Nix have we seen a debut as hugely ambitious as this one

Kirkus

This is a character-based pop novel done right: accessible, unpretentious, hard-hitting . . . It’s Rocky in the style of Rashomon with a heavy rewrite from Philip Roth . . . Much of Schaefer’s commentary on race is masked under cynical Jewish humor. But even when he’s joking, Schaefer is savvy and sober about how race penetrates different aspects of American life . . . The thing I admire most is that Schaefer set himself such a challenge for a debut novel and that he succeeded. I can’t overstate how immiscible the mix of ingredients is in The Slip . . . A tremendously strong novel

Village Voice

Wildly ambitious and immensely rewarding, a maximalist debut that brings to mind Zadie Smith’s White Teeth in its stylistic brio, vivid sociological detail and general air of chutzpah. You’re unlikely to read a more impressive first novel this year

New York Times Book Review

Wildly, transgressively hilarious, reminiscent of Philip Roth’s early novels . . . This is a high-wire act, but the breadth of Schaefer’s affection feels as wide as the depth of his comedy

Washington Post, '10 Best Books of 2025'

Bursting, messy, flamboyant... Its footwork is fleet and its energy is unflagging

Wall Street Journal

Lucas Schaefer writes with a self-assurance that’s stylish but not showy. Fans of John Irving, Paul Murray and Nathan Hill will find a whole lot to love in this knockout of a novel

NPR