Tao Lin

Tao Lin in 2010. Photo by Steve McLaughlin. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Tao Lin
Born	July 2, 1983 (1983-07-02) Alexandria, Virginia
Occupation	novelist, poet
Nationality	United States
Genres	Literary
Subjects	himself
Notable work(s)	Shoplifting from American Apparel, Richard Yates
Influences Joy Williams, David Foster Wallace, Lorrie Moore, Frederick Barthelme, Jean Rhys, Ann Beattie, Richard Yates, Matthew Rohrer, Lydia Davis, Noah Cicero, Fernando Pessoa, Don DeLillo
Influenced Zachary German

Tao Lin (born July 2, 1983) is an American poet and writer of fiction.

Life

Lin was born of Taiwanese parents. He graduated from New York University in 2005 with a B.A. in Journalism.

He lives in Manhattan, New York City.

He is the author of 2 novels, a novella, a short story collection, and 2 poetry collections. In May 2011, he began a weekly column titled "Drug-Related Photoshop Art" for Vice Magazine.

Muumuu House

Lin founded literary press Muumuu House in late 2008. Its first 2 publications were debut poetry collections by Ellen Kennedy and Brandon Scott Gorrell.

MDMAfilms

Lin co-founded film company MDMAfilms (with Megan Boyle) in late 2010. Its feature-length releases, all shot on MacBooks, include a documentary on Bebe Zeva and 2 feature films titled MDMA and Mumblecore."

Writing

you are a little bit happier than i am (2006)

In November 2006 Lin's first book, a poetry collection, you are a little bit happier than i am, was published. It was the winner of Action Books' December Prize and has been a small press bestseller.

Eeeee Eee Eeee & Bed (2007)

In May 2007 Lin's first novel, Eeeee Eee Eeee, and first story collection, Bed, were published simultaneously.

They were ignored by most mainstream media but have since been referenced in The Independent (who called Eeeee Eee Eeee "a wonderfully deadpan joke"0, and The New York Times, who called Lin a "deadpan literary trickster" in reference to Eeeee Eee Eeee.

Eeeee Eee Eeee has been translated to Spanish, Japanese, Chinese-Serbian, and German.

cognitive-behavioral therapy (2008)

In May 2008 Lin's second poetry collection, cognitive-behavioral therapy was published.

A French translation will be published by Au Diable Vauvert in 2013.

Shoplifting from American Apparel (2009)

In September 2009 Lin's novella, Shoplifting from American Apparel, was published to mixed reviews. The Guardian said, "Trancelike and often hilarious… Lin's writing is reminiscent of early Douglas Coupland, or early Bret Easton Ellis, but there is also something going on here that is more profoundly peculiar, even Beckettian." The Village Voice called it a "fragile, elusive book." Bookslut said, "it shares an affected childishness with bands like The Moldy Peaches and it has a put-on weirdness reminiscent of Miranda July's No One Belongs Here More Than You." Time Out New York said, "Writing about being an artist makes most contemporary artists self-conscious, squeamish and arch. Lin, however, appears to be comfortable, even earnest, when his characters try to describe their aspirations (or their shortcomings) [...] purposefully raw." San Francisco Chronicle said, “Tao Lin's sly, forlorn, deadpan humor jumps off the page [...] will delight fans of everyone from Mark Twain to Michelle Tea.” Los Angeles Times said, "Camus' The Stranger or sociopath?" while Austin Chronicle called it "scathingly funny" and said that "it might just be the future of literature." Another reviewer described it as "a vehicle...for self-promotion."

In an interview aired December 2009 with Michael Silverblatt on KCRW's Bookworm Silverblatt called the novella "the purest example so far of the minimalist aesthetic as it used to be enunciated" and Lin described the novella's style as deliberately "concrete, with all the focus on surface details, with no sentences devoted to thoughts or feelings, and I think that results in a kind of themelessness, that, in its lack of focus on anything else, the theme becomes, to me, the passage of time."

In December 2009 clothing retailer Urban Outfitters began selling Shoplifting from American Apparel in its stores.

As of Summer 2011, a film adaptation of Shoplifting from American Apparel is in the works by Sangha Films, starring Noah Cicero and Jordan Castro.

Richard Yates (2010)

Published September 7, 2010 by Melville House Publishing, Richard Yates is Tao Lin's 2nd novel.

In England, papers such as the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian ran pieces on him. In the United States, Lin was mentioned on the blogs of New York magazine, the New Yorker, the New York Times, and Poets & Writers.

In a book review in The New York Times, Charles Bock described the book as "more interesting as a concept than as an actual narrative", and summarized "By the time I reached the last 50 pages, each time the characters said they wanted to kill themselves, I knew exactly how they felt."

Clancy Martin said of it: "Richard Yates is hilarious, menacing, and hugely intelligent. Tao Lin is a Kafka for the iPhone generation. He has that most important gift: it’s impossible to imagine anyone else writing like he does and sounding authentic. Yet he has already spawned a huge school of Lin imitators. As precocious and prolific as he is, every book surpasses the last. Tao Lin may well be the most important writer under thirty working today."

It has been translated to Spanish (Alpha Decay), Italian (Saggiatore), and French (Au Diable Vauvert).

Untitled Third Novel (2013)

In August 2011, Lin reported that he had found an agent for his third book, which he described as "a combination of Lorrie Moore’s prose style and tone, Bret Easton Ellis’ sort of reckless and drug-using characters, and Siddhartha’s continually unsuccessful, earnest attempts at some kind of peace or transcendence." Lin told the New York Observer that he plans to complete the novel by Fall 2012 and that he wants it to be "short...something [he] could almost memorize."

On August 15, 2011, the Wall Street Journal reported that rights to the unfinished novel had been sold at auction to Vintage.

Critical response

Lin's writing has attracted both negative and positive attention from various publications. Gawker once referred to him as "maybe perhaps the single most irritating person we've ever had to deal with", though he was later "pardoned". After the "pardon", Gawker published a piece Lin had written.

L Magazine said, "We've long been deeply irked by Lin's vacuous posturing and 'I know you are but what am I' dorm-room philosophizing..." Sam Anderson, in New York Magazine, wrote, "Dismissing Lin, however, ignores the fact that he is deeply smart, funny, and head-over-heels dedicated in exactly the way we like our young artists to be."

An article in The Atlantic described Lin as having a "fairly staggering" knack for self-promotion. The same article said "there's something unusual about a writer being so transparent, so ready to tell you every insignificant detail of a seemingly eventful day, so aware of his next novel's word count, yet also remaining so opaque, mysterious..."

Lin's work has increasingly been praised in the UK, including positive reviews from The Guardian and a career overview from London Review of Books.

Publications

Poetry

• You Are a Little Bit Happier than I Am. Notre Dame, IN: Action Books, 2006.
• Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Poems. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2008.

Novels

• Eeeee eee eeee: A novel. Hoboken, NJ: Melville House, 2007.
• Richard Yates. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2010.
• Taipei: A novel. New York: Vintage, 2013.

Short fiction

• Bed: Stories. Hoboken, NJ: Melville House Pub., 2007.
• Shoplifting from American Apparel (novella). Brooklyn, NY: Melville House, 2009.

Non-fiction

• Selected Tweets (with Mira Gonzalez; tweets & interviews). Ann Arbor, MI : Short Flight/Long Drive Books, a division of Hobart Publishing, 2015.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

E-books

Tao Lin @ KGB

• This Emotion Was a Little E-book (poetry). 2006.
• Today the Sky is Blue and White with Bright Blue Spots and a Small Pale Moon and I Will Destroy Our Relationship Today (short stories). 2006.
• Hikikomori (with Ellen Kennedy; letters). 2007.

See also

• Asian-American poets
• List of U.S. poets

External links

Poems

• "The Poem I Wrote In My Room After We Fought On The Internet And You Called Me A Dick And Said You Had To Go To Sleep And Said You Would Email Me Over Thanksgiving From Home But Then Said ‘Forget It’ After I Said About You Emailing Me Over Thanksgiving From Home That ‘I Doubt It’"
• Three poems by Tao Lin at Word Riot
• This Emotion Was a Little E-book (8 poems)
• Tao Lin at the Poetry Foundation

Prose

• Excerpt of Richard Yates at Hipster Runoff
• Essay about the future of the novel in New York Observer
• Archive of author's work at Thought Catalog

Audio / video

• Tao Lin at YouTube

Books

• Tao Lin at Amazon.com

About

• "New Lit Boy: Tao Lin in New York Magazine
• "Great American Novelist" in The Stranger
• A Kind of Gnawing Offness", career overview in London Review of Books (excerpt)
• Tao Lin's Development as a Poet, 2000-2013
• Tao Lin Official website
• Reader of Depressing Books: Tao Lin's weblog, 2006-2013
• Author's Twitter account
• Author's site for Richard Yates
• review of Shoplifting from American Apparel in The Guardian
• Review of Richard Yates in New York Times Book Review
• review of Richard Yates in The Guardian