SHOPLIFTING FROM AMERICAN APPAREL
September 1st, 2009I just read SHOPLIFTING FROM AMERICAN APPAREL by Tao Lin and I kept thinking about the story collection LAST EVENINGS ON EARTH by Roberto Bolano.
Both books have lots of grinning and shy smiles. Both are about writers, but actually, they aren’t similar at all, except for what I’m gonna call a haphazard-but also-logistically attentive “this happened, and then this happened and then this” style, even detailing where characters walked, for how many minutes, and everything they see (”They sat looking ahead, away from the house, at some tents and a fence and another house” -SLFAA). Also Tao Lin only uses first names, sometimes Bolano only uses letters, but more importantly, neither describes anything that isn’t “happening” in the scene.
One huge difference is we infrequently get the thoughts of Tao Lin’s characters, while we know a lot, a lot about the thoughts of people in the Bolano stories. This difference doesn’t really diminish whatever it is that’s shared — a looseness, a journalistic lack of ambiguity, a devil-may-care abruptness. It’s like these books are casually dressed for a fancy party, but on purpose, but not annoyingly on purpose. It’s interesting to think about this looseness in response to terse, super-polished, abstract fiction.
Anyway, SHOPLIFTING FROM AMERICAN APPAREL is funny, goes by really fast, and when I was reading I felt hyper, like I was in the book and had a lot of easygoing friends to sit in a park with.
I realized I have no clue what Tao Lin means when he writes about “neutral facial expressions.” I think he uses that expression a lot on his blog. I tried it and I don’t think I can make my face neutral.
The main character Sam gets a lot of ass.
Here are some parts I really loved:
“I was in fucking McSorley’s…the oldest bar…you motherfuckers. This isn’t fair.”
“Life isn’t fair,” said an African American policeman.
“You,” screamed the drunk man loudly. “Life. You. You are bringing life into this? Don’t do that you motherfucker. Don’t fucking do that. You are bringing life into this.”
Sam picked up a very long stick and said he was going to stir his drink with it.
“People with high motivation to have sex all the time don’t like Lorrie Moore.”
Sam told Audrey to scream “red shirt” at people across the street walking in the same direction as them. “Red shirt,” screamed Audrey. A woman in her forties, two teenagers, and a person in a bright red shirt who was maybe twenty turned their upper bodies and looked at Audrey while walking forward. “It’s a family, I think,” said Sam. “They’re ignoring it. That’s so bad for them, a family, it’ll probably be all they talk about later, like when they’re eating.”