Shoplifting from American Apparel

Shoplifting from American Apparel by Tao Lin is written in first person narrative. My first impression of was that it was nothing like I’m use to reading for my college classes. Both characters seem eerie, and have odd conversations with each other and the people they encounter. While reading their dialogue for the first time, it appeared to me that they must not be normal people , and I continued to think this for a few more chapters. Sam for instance, is a writer, but doesn’t seem to spend much time writing. Instead, he likes to shoplift for no apparent reason because in most cases he has the money to pay for things, but chooses to just take them and ends up getting caught. He also likes to chat through Gmail, and sleep. The use of Gmail chat and Myspace in this book made me chuckle a little because I thought to myself “Nobody uses Myspace anymore.” Sam spends a lot of his time interacting with different people, and never seems to be in one place for too long. However, I feel that he has to do this because he’s a writer. When I first read about his internet relationship, It made me think that maybe he is incapable of having a real relationship, and blocks out his feelings most of the time.

One thing that I noticed through out the whole book was how meaningless everything that happens is, or at least that's how Lin makes it seem. In hopes to find out more about the author, I searched online and I saw a comment being directed towards him which really caught my attention. It read, “The art of storytelling is dead.” Perhaps just reading this book isn’t enough to judge, but I definitely feel like that has some truth to it because of the way this story is told. In other reviews and news, there have been a lot of times where Lin has been arrested for trespassing and shoplifting, so I think that this book definitely speaks and in a way reflects on what he has been through and what he is like as a person. Much like the readings by Warhol and Mohammad, this one sort of gives the reader a glimpse of what everyday modern life looks like. The thing about the storyline here is that it isn’t exaggerated like it would be in other books, but rather just tells us exactly what is happening and that's it.