The first thing I notice about Tao Lin is that he has small tattoos on his arms.  Little oblong animals he ostensibly drew himself, the words “Fuck America” along the inside of his right elbow/bicep (simply because he thinks it’s funny).  I wasn’t expecting that.  In all the YouTube clips and press photos of him online, he is void of skin ink.  I ask him about them during our chat at a table outside a sushi restaurant right above Skylight Books on Vermont, before he’s to give a reading in support of his recently published novel Richard Yates.  

“Are those real tattoos?” 

 He grins and affirms.  The quirky tats represent a persona that has fascinated members of the literary community/blogosphere for several years now.  What’s often said about Tao Lin is that he’s a savant of self-promotion, the young writer who has used the Internet most effectively to enhance his renown and intrigue. Many find him indicative of a slide into a world of e-books and Kindles.    

What many of these people miss is that the guy’s incredibly focused on literature.  He should be talked about for the fact that he writes for up to twelve hours a day in the library at NYU, his alma mater.  What’s more interesting about him than his obsession with hamsters and Gmail is the fact that he’s written a book that portrays a passive-aggressive relationship really, really well.  It’s a story ripe with disturbing details and shifts in control that make it simultaneously hysterical and depressing as hell.    

 The novel’s few characters and Lin’s attention to detail and mention of outside forces, like a character named “Tape Man” and a “guy from Philadelphia,” add a disturbing air to the story much like Bret Easton Ellis’ best stuff does. 

 “I worked really hard on stuff like that. No one really talks about it in reviews and stuff and it makes me wonder if I’ve written a shitty book because nobody’s noticing it or something,” he said.      

And Lin confirms that it’s a story based on his real life, which adds a level of mystique to it that’s heightened later on at the reading when an audience member asks if the Dakota Fanning character in the book is based on fellow Muumuu House writer Ellen Kennedy and Lin smiles through his response.      

 A topic of interest during our chat and even during the reading is a recent review of his book in the New York Times by author Charles Bock that was pretty negative, calling for more dramatic pressure in the novel.  Tao seems vaguely interested in it, commenting that Bock probably wanted more of a “movie book.”   
 

Our consensus is this: buy Richard Yates.  It’s really good.  And Tao’s out of money.

Written by: Michael Juliani 

Photographs Courtesy MDMAfilms.org