Tao Lin reads at Pilot Books

Tao Lin to read at Pilot Books in Capitol Hill

Lin's visage is well-protected; so instead, here's a gallery display of his writing on texting.

Tao Lin is one of those authors/poets/essayists that is really divisive. His well-known persona and his fiction books, Shoplifting from American Apparel, Bed and Eeeee Eee Eeee have earned him both high acolades and creative condemnations, including "the single most irratating person we've ever had to deal with" (from Gawker; he was later forgiven). Also, L Magazine hates this guy.

On March 31 at Pilot Books, Lin will read and answer questions as part of the store's Small Press Fest. Lin is known for having fun with audiences at readings, so it should be an interesting evening.

[More after the jump.]

While I was interning at The Stranger, I had the pleasure of interviewing a much jet-lagged Lin about his writing. I was a little concerned at first because, although I found Shoplifting to be a resonant work that nailed a lot of my peers in its characterizations, I was not a fan of his essay "What I Can Tell You About Seattle Based on the People I've Met Who Are From There" (also published as a feature in The Stranger). Even if you're not from here, it is a trite review of the city. Of course, the level you care about it might be connected to whether or not you live here.

Naturally, I recommend reading the whole interview, but if you're short on time, enjoy this excerpt:

In my previous books, especially my first story collection, Bed, I had long passages on people's thoughts and feelings, which expressed a certain kind of philosophy that could be characterized as trying to accept one's situation and all situations as equally important and trying to detach oneself from one's negative emotions. So when characters felt sad, they would try to view their sadness with irony or detachment so they wouldn't feel as bad. So in my new book, I felt that the natural progression would be to try to sort of like practice that philosophy in the book instead of just repeating the passages talking about wanting to be that. I can choose to feel good or bad.

As we discussed in the interview, Lin's characters have been called sociopathic for their level of detachment and lack of speech, but Lin saw a connection between communicating through concrete details in his prose and mindfulness of emotions, a concept that plays out at length in Shoplifting. For this, I'm really looking forward to his next book Richard Yates, due out in September.