The Sugar Frosted Nutsack

Questions and topics for discussion

In a profile of Mark Leyner, journalist Adam Sternbergh called The Sugar Frosted Nutsack “a strange and indescribable novel, even by the standards of Leyner, purveyor of the strange and difficult to describe.” How would you describe this indescribable novel to a friend? And how would you describe the experience of describing the indescribable?

Mark Leyner wrote The Sugar Frosted Nutsack in complete isolation without receiving feedback or guidance from a single person throughout the process. In an interview, Leyner said, “This book had to have a certain completely enclosed, impenetrably claustrophobic kind of madness to it.” How does this compare to your personal experience reading the book? Have you ever had a similar experience in your own life of isolating yourself from the world?

The book poses the question “What Makes Ike a Hero?” followed by a list of sixteen hero-making qualities, including Ike’s hatred of the rich, his efforts to situate himself in history, his ongoing self-narration, and his unwavering belief in his untimely death, among others. In what ways does Ike resemble your idea of a hero?

The Sugar Frosted Nutsack is peppered with a vast number of celebrities and influential people whose names we recognize (and sometimes don’t recognize), ranging from Jersey Shore’s Snooki to Japan’s minister of finance, Shoichi Nakagawa. Ike himself despises rich celebrities, and yet is practically a celebrity himself within the epic. What do you think Leyner is implying about celebrity culture? In what ways are celebrities present in your everyday life?

The Sugar Frosted Nutsack has been described as a “visionary comedy” as well as “at times almost achingly sad.” What moments in the novel moved you, and why? What moments did you find funniest?

In addition to writing fiction, Mark Leyner has worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood. How do you think Leyner’s experience with film and television influences his fiction? What elements of the book did you find particularly cinematic?

While The Sugar Frosted Nutsack, as an epic, is described, discussed, and analyzed, an epic tale is conspicuously missing, making a reading of this book much like reading an introduction to or review of a work without having access to the work itself. Discuss this kind of reading experience and what effect it had on you. Did you find it liberating, frustrating, or SUPER-SEXY?

What are your favorite Greek myths? Why do you think these myths have endured for so long? In what ways does The Sugar Frosted Nutsack draw from and muddle up the elements of the traditional Greek myth, and to what effect?

Many reviewers of The Sugar Frosted Nutsack have likened the book’s effect to that of mind-altering drugs. Drugs themselves play a large role in the epic, most notably when Ike and Vance get “SO high” on gravy. Do you think fiction can have a drug-like power to alter your mind? Discuss when fiction has done this for you.

“That the Gods only occur in Ike’s mind is not a refutation of their actuality. It is, on the contrary, irrefutable proof of their empirical existence. The Gods choose to only exist in Ike’s mind. They are real by virtue of this, their prerogative.” Discuss the themes of religion and belief in the book. Do you think believing in something affirms its existence? What are the beliefs, religious or not, that are most important to you?