Richard Yates Read online

  Praise for Tao Lin’s Previous Work

  “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 text is conscientiously scoured of narrative ‘purpose’, ‘characterisation’, and anything else that would smack of novelistic bullshit. What is left is an attitude, a mood, a comically despairing abandoning of literary ego.”

  — The Guardian

  “A deadpan literary trickster.”

  — New York Times

  “A revolutionary.”

  — The Stranger

  “Deeply smart, funny, and head-over-heels dedicated.”

  —Sam Anderson, New York Magazine

  “Fascinating and articulate in a way that people my age (incl. um, like, you know, myself) rarely are.”

  —Emily Gould

  “Tao Lin writes from moods that less radical writers would let pass—from laziness, from vacancy, from boredom. And it turns out that his report from these places is moving and necessary, not to mention frequently hilarious.”

  —Miranda July

  “Tao Lin’s sly, forlorn, deadpan humor jumps off the page . . . his prose retains the energy of an outlaw [ . . . ] will delight fans of everyone from Mark Twain to Michelle Tea.”

  — San Francisco Chronicle

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  “Stimulating and exciting [ . . . ] It doesn’t often happen that a debuting writer displays not only irrepressible talent but also the ability to undermine the conventions of fi ction and set off in new directions. Tao Lin, who is 24, does it.”

  — San Francisco Bay Guardian

  “[ Shoplifting from American Apparel] is scathingly funny for being so spare [ . . . ] just might be the future of literature.”

  — Austin Chronicle

  “[ Shoplifting from American Apparel] is the purest example so far of the minimalist aesthetic as it used to be enunciated.”

  —Michael Silverblatt, Bookworm

  “[ Shoplifting from American Apparel] is somehow both the funniest and the saddest book I’ve read in a long time.”

  —Michael Schaub, Bookslut

  “Full of melancholy, tension, and hilarity [ . . . ] Lin is a master of pinpointing the ways in which the Internet and text messages can quell loneliness, while acknowledging that these faceless forms of communication probably created that loneliness to begin with.”

  — Boston Phoenix

  “You don’t think, ‘I like this guy,’ or ‘I really dislike this guy.’ You think,

  ‘huh.’ [ . . . ] Camus’ The Stranger or ‘sociopath?’”

  — Los Angeles Times

  “Prodigal, unpredictable . . . impossible to ignore.”

  — Paste Magazine

  “A master of understatement–or, rather, of statement.”

  — Vice Magazine

  “Very Funny.”

  — USA Today

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  “[ Eeeee Eee Eeee] is a wonderfully deadpan joke.”

  — The Independent

  “Eeeee Eee Eeee is an un-self-conscious yet commanding tour de force.”

  — Powells.com

  “[A] remarkable novel.”

  —Steve Mitchelmore, Ready Steady Book

  “Tao Lin’s sentences are so good they sometimos make me shudder.”

  — Boookslut

  “Tao Lin’s fi ction will kick your ass and say thank you afterwards!”

  —Amy Fusselman, author of The Pharmacist’s Mate

  “What’s more remarkable than a writer who manages to release two critically acclaimed books at once? One who does it at the age of 23.”

  — The Boston Globe

  “[Lin] is twice ironic, twice earnest, but also twice nihilistic, twice moral.

  Eeeee Eee Eeee’s characters wallow in their depression and/or are cleverly detached from that depression.”

  — Rain Taxi

  “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.”

  — Time Out New York

  “Lin’s sympathetic fascination with the meaning of life is full of profound and often hilarious insights.”

  — Publishers Weekly

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  “A harsh and absurd new voice in writing. Employing Raymond Carver’s poker face and Lydia Davis’s bleak analytical mind, Lin renders ordinary—but tortured—landscapes of failed connections among families and lovers that will be familiar to anyone who has been unhappy [ . . . ] the prose is poetic and downright David Lynch-ian

  — Time Out Chicago

  “Tao Lin is the most distinctive young writer I’ve come upon in a long time: the most intrepid, the funniest, the strangest. He is completely unlike anyone else.”

  —Brian Morton, author of Starting Out in the Evening

  “Loved it. [ . . . ] Shoplifting From American Apparel stands out. And maybe it’s similar, if stylistically opposite, from We Did Porn in this way.

  Both books are necessary, written for people who don’t have many books to choose from. They’re not competing with the rest of the books on the shelf. They’re on a different shelf where there aren’t too many books.

  On that same shelf you’ll fi nd Ask The Dust, Frisk, The Fuck Up, The Basketball Diaries, Jesus’ Son, several books by Michelle Tea, Last Exit to Brooklyn, and Chelsea Girls. It’s a good shelf to be on, I think. Young, urban, self-sure, engaged.”

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  R IC H A R D

  YAT E S

  TA O L I N

  Melville House

  Brooklyn, New York

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  RICHARD YATES

  Copyright © 2010 by Tao Lin

  All rights reserved

  First Melville House Printing: July 2010

  Melville House Publishing

  145 Plymouth Street

  Brooklyn, New York 11201

  mhpbooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-935554-15-8

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lin, Tao, 1983-Richard Yates / Tao Lin.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-935554-15-8

  I. Title.

  PS3612.I517R53 2010

  813'.6—dc22 2010017972

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  “I’ve only had the opportunity to hold a hamster once,” said Dakota Fanning on Gmail chat. “Its paws were so tiny. I think I cried a little.”

  “I saw a hamster eating its babies,” said Haley Joel Osment. “I wanted to give it a high-fi ve. But it didn’t know what a high-fi ve is.”

  “I would eat my babies if I had some. I don’t have any babies.”

  “How old are you?” said Haley Joel Osment.

  “16. It’s probably good I don’t have babies.”

  “You are not 16. You are like
25.”

  “No, I am 16,” said Dakota Fanning. “I drew a hamster on a pink piece of paper today then I threw it on top of a recycling bin full of paper so whenever anybody recycles paper the hamster will look at them and be cute for them.”

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  Tao Lin • 8

  Haley Joel Osment said that was cute. Dakota Fanning said in real life she didn’t make any faces. She just let her muscles make what they make naturally and every day people said

  “You look sad, stop it. You don’t have the right to be sad.

  I’m sad. My parents are divorced. Say something funny.”

  Haley Joel Osment said he felt good when he made a sad face.

  “My mom saw a package from you and asked if you

  were a creep,” said Dakota Fanning on Gmail chat about a week later. “I said you were not a creep. I said you were a graduate of New York University.” Haley Joel Osment said the only purpose of going to New York University was so Dakota Fanning could now tell her mother he was not a creep, but a graduate of New York University. Dakota Fanning said she was going on a fi eld trip to a museum in Manhattan in November and Haley Joel Osment could fi nd her then and sit by her and they could eat together.

  “That sounds good,” said Haley Joel Osment.

  “November is so far away,” he said.

  A few weeks later they talked on the phone for about three hours. Dakota Fanning said she worked at McDonald’s then walked on a bridge and gave a homeless man $20 and told the homeless man she hated her job and walked home and tried to juggle things for fi fteen minutes. Haley Joel Osment was lying in the dark on his air mattress in a three-person apartment on Wall Street. His room had no windows. He said he was walking today and noticed he was thinking

  “Life is stupid. I am stupid.” But it was one sentence not two. Dakota Fanning said that was okay. She said she had a broken violin she was saving because she wanted to smash mhp-yates-01.indd 8

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  9 • Richard Yates

  it but she always said “no, not yet.” When they had nothing to say they were quiet and then said “hi” to each other around forty times.

  The next day Haley Joel Osment stood outside the

  membership library on 76th Street where he worked twenty-fi ve-hours a week and felt sunlight on his face and ate a salad. It was April 25. Haley Joel Osment was 22. After work he rode the 6 train to New York University’s Bobst Library and sat in front of a computer. He wasn’t a student anymore but someone had made a mistake and given him access until 2011. It was 2006. Haley Joel Osment talked to Dakota Fanning on Gmail chat. He went to his apartment.

  He lay on his air mattress. He read a short story about a severely depressed woman in rural Illinois.

  He woke around 2:00 p.m. and showered and put on

  clothes. He walked into the kitchen listening to music from his iPod through earphones. He was alone in the apartment.

  He stared at the common room. He once watched a Korean movie with his suitemate in the common room. In the movie a cop accidentally jump-kicked another cop. The movie was about a serial killer. “I feel bored of life,” thought Haley Joel Osment. “Or wait. I don’t know. Never mind.” He went to Whole Foods and put avocado sushi and coconut water and a container of fruit in his duffl e bag and walked to Karen’s and bought organic iced coffee and walked to Bobst Library. “I’m not sure if you should come Friday,”

  said Dakota Fanning on Gmail chat. “My mom is going to think you’re going to rape me or something.”

  “Your mom,” said Haley Joel Osment.

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  Tao Lin • 10

  ‘autistic vegans can still rape people.’ I told her I felt in-sulted by that comment.”

  “I don’t want to see her. I’m,” said Haley Joel Osment and thought about how he already said more than fi fteen times that he was afraid of Dakota Fanning’s mother. “Haley,” he said.

  “I don’t think she knows how old you are,” said Dakota Fanning. “The majority of my friends are your age and she doesn’t care. I think she thinks you’re like 35 or something.”

  “Why does she think I’ll rape you?” said Haley Joel Osment.

  “She thinks everyone on the internet is out to rape ev-erybody.”

  “What should I do,” said Haley Joel Osment.

  “You should rape me out of spite,” said Dakota Fanning.

  “I fed eggplant to Aladdin today,” she said about her dog.

  “Why don’t you want me to go over?” said Haley Joel Osment. “I’m angry.”

  “I want you to,” said Dakota Fanning. “I’m just afraid.

  Just come.”

  “You delayed me too much. I’m tired. I feel like I already went.”

  “Just come please, I will make a papoose,” said Dakota Fanning. “I have eggplant and blueberries. Are you okay with sleeping in a fi eld? We might have to sleep in a fi eld.”

  “Okay,” said Haley Joel Osment. “Why?”

  “So we don’t get attacked by my mom. I just googled papoose and found this.” Dakota Fanning sent a link to an image of an amorphous gray sac.

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  “Is that you,” said Haley Joel Osment. “I feel pain. I have a migraine.”

  “Will you come Friday when you aren’t so sick? I’m afraid the fi eld will make you sicker.”

  “Am I really coming?” said Haley Joel Osment. “I am quickly losing interest. Soon we won’t talk anymore. Life is terrible.”

  “Come tomorrow,” said Dakota Fanning.

  “No, you’re right,” said Haley Joel Osment. “I’m too sick. Can I come Friday?”

  “Yes. I can’t remember if I have the SATs Saturday morning or Sunday morning. I think I have them Saturday.

  It is Saturday. I just looked. Why are we always fucked. We are fucked. Look at that typo,” said Dakota Fanning about fucked being spelled as fuckexc. “That is how fucked we are. My brother is missing. The lady who electrocutes us just called. She can’t fi nd him. He never came home.” Once a week Dakota Fanning, Dakota Fanning’s brother, Dakota Fanning’s mother went separately to a three-story house where for purposes of lowering depression and anxiety levels someone named Charlene put radiowaves through recep-tors to make them look like brainwaves and then directed those waves at areas in their brains where there were too many alpha, beta, or delta waves. The procedure was called biofeedback. Dakota Fanning was nervous because it began in the ’80s and the long-term effects were unknown and also she was afraid about never being sad because when she was happy she was annoying and ran around like a child with ADHD and started sentences and didn’t fi nish them.

  “He might have killed himself,” said Haley Joel Osment. “Life is terrible.”

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  Tao Lin • 12

  “He gets tired a lot,” said Dakota Fanning. “He might have driven his car off the road and died. He is always tired.”

  “You aren’t visiting me,” said Haley Joel Osment.

  “I am,” said Dakota Fanning.

  “You are. When you are.”

  “Soon,” said Dakota Fanning.

  “Soon.”

  “Soon,” said Dakota Fanning.

  “It will never happen,” said Haley Joel Osment. “I’m giving up on life. Even more. Wait. I already did. Even more I am.”

  “It will happen,” said Dakota Fanning.


  “Something is wrong with me,” said Haley Joel Os-

  ment. “I’m going.” They each said good night. Haley Joel Osment stared at the computer screen. He rode the N train to his apartment. He looked at for-sale fl yers on a bulletin board in the laundry room. He stood in an elevator. He boiled organic angel-hair pasta and carried a bowl of it to his room and sat on the fl oor with organic tomato sauce, olive oil, black pepper. “I fear social interaction,” he thought while eating. “Probably more than anyone I know. More than so many people. Seems ‘surreal,’ like it’s not really true. Talking to Dakota seems ‘surreal,’ because of her level of creativity maybe. It seems fun. I like talking to her. I like her writing.” He walked to the kitchen, picked up a container of organic fl axseeds, walked to his room, put organic fl axseeds on his pasta.

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  two hours from Secaucus to Dakota Fanning’s town in New Jersey. On the second train he read 110 pages of an Ernest Hemingway biography that said Ernest Hemingway accidentally shot his own legs twice with a gun when he caught a shark while fi shing and that in the Spanish Civil War he had a Tommy gun and they were in trouble and he ran into an area and used the Tommy gun and then they were safe.

  Haley Joel Osment stepped off the train and saw Dakota Fanning walking toward him. She had on rain boots and an oversized black dress and was smiling.

  “I am thinking about something,” thought Haley Joel Osment.

  “We’ll make jokes,” he thought. “Sometimes we’ll eat food together.”

  There were mountains in two directions and Haley

  Joel Osment pointed at them. He said he sat across from a 90-year-old man on the train and wanted the man to die so he could roll the corpse into a corner.

  “What happened?” said Dakota Fanning.

  “What do you mean?” said Haley Joel Osment.

  Dakota Fanning looked down a little.

  “Did he die?” she said grinning.

  “No,” said Haley Joel Osment. “He seemed really

  old.”

  They walked to a playground. “Look at those babies,”