Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jun 2013
272 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
From one of this generation's most talked about and enigmatic writers comes a deeply personal, powerful, and moving novel about family, relationships, accelerating drug use, and the lingering possibility of death.
Taipei by Tao Lin is an ode - or lament - to the way we live now. Following Paul from New York, where he comically navigates Manhattan's art and literary scenes, to Taipei, Taiwan, where he confronts his family's roots, we see one relationship fail, while another is born on the internet and blooms into an unexpected wedding in Las Vegas. Along the way - whether on all night drives up the East Coast, shoplifting excursions in the South, book readings on the West Coast, or ill advised grocery runs in Ohio - movies are made with laptop cameras, massive amounts of drugs are ingested, and two young lovers come to learn what it means to share themselves completely. The result is a suspenseful meditation on memory, love, and what it means to be alive, young, and on the fringe in America, or anywhere else for that matter.
"Starred Review. For all its emotional reality, Taipai is a book without an ounce of self-pity, melodrama, or posturing, making the glacial Lin the perfect poster child for a generation facing - and failing to face - maturity." - Publishers Weekly
"Very much au courant, a meditation on the nonexistent somethingness that was currently life.'" - Kirkus
"Taipei mashes up the literatures of intoxication (a la Irvine Welsh) and ennui (a la Bret Easton Ellis) to produce a surprisingly clearheaded cautionary tale about a drug-loving young Taiwanese-American art-and-book-world scenester trying to navigate the more consequential realms of family, romance, and adulthood." - Elle
"Tao Lin [is] an excellent writer of avant-garde fiction. His new novel is his most mature work, and follows a young New York writer to Taipei, where he must reconcile his family's roots with the haze of MDMA, texts and tweets that he's been living in. Mr. Lin has refined his deadpan prose style here into an icy, cynical, but ultimately thrilling and unique literary voice." - New York Observer
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Tao Lin is the author of the novels Richard Yates and Eeeee Eee Eeee, the novella Shoplifting from American Apparel, the story collection Bed, and the poetry collections cognitive-behavioral therapy and you are a little bit happier than i am. He is the founder and editor of the literary press Muumuu House. His work has been translated to twelve languages and he lives in Manhattan.
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