On "The Novelist" by Tao Lin (1503 words) ****

Of the many stories in Tao Lin's online collection Today The Sky is Blue and White with Bright Blue Spots and a Small Pale Moon and I Will Destroy Our Relationship Today, this concluding one is my favorite. It's about, well, a novelist, and about the way in which writers and artists tend to turn anything and everything that is an aspect of their lives into art, sometimes self-consciously so. Perhaps, as this story hints, we do art to add meaning to our lives, which, like the events in this story, are generally pretty nonconsequential, pretty mundane, unless of course they're in a novel--or about to be. Read the story here at Bear Parade.

On "Robbers" by Tao Lin (789 words) ***

Here's another absurd story by Tao Lin in which the normally horrifying becomes simply hilarious. If only real life burglaries could be this funny or this much fun. I'm reminded of a recent break-in at a friend of mines, all the inconvenience of it, beyond just the awkward feeling of being violated. That was not funny. And yet, put it in a story, distance one's self from it, and there's plenty of place for humor. In her case, the thief, as here, was caught in the act. It became a kind of neighborhood social event, people all hanging out in the front yards, as the police staked out the house, waiting for the thief to surrender. Lemonade, a few baked cookies, some gossip--a good time had by all, except the terrified thief, of course, who tried to hide in the duct system, as if the police surrounding the house were simply going to go away. Read a slightly different story here at Bear Parade.

On "Richie" by Tao Lin (1717 words) ***

What sticks in my head about this piece that I'd come back to write about it sometime later? It's probably the typically ludicrous world that Tao Lin sticks us in. Here, a family is taken hostage by some particularly inept kidnappers, who also happen to be studying for exams. Do you know how much you're worth? Do you know how much you're worth for one week? one day? one hour? a minute? Read the story here at Bear Parade.

On "Should" by Tao Lin (1824 words) ****

What I like about this piece isn't perhaps that it offers any sort of clarity. In fact, it works way from clarity as much as possible, jumbling moments together, returning to them, redefining them, trying to figure out what they mean. Did this guy just get broken up with? Or is he seeing this girl? Are they compatible or not? The story works with the same sort of obsessiveness with which we work through such thoughts. And like most such thoughts, they lead us nowhere, at least until babies are involved. Read the story here at Bear Parade.

On "Eeeee Eee Eeee" by Tao Lin ****

This might as well be the Tao Lin blog today, right? I promise to stop obsessing, but this guy is the freshest voice I've come across in a long while. Closest thing to him is perhaps Miranda July, but while July's material is arresting and different, Lin is the better short story writer--that is, when he's on his game. Many of his stories seem to occur in dream worlds, where anything can happen and where events are haphazard and nonsensical. Humor is abundant. At worst, his stories meander and lead nowhere. At best, they come together in some surprising way at the end that makes all the nonsense insightful. Eeeee Eee Eeee (dolphins speak) is Lin's novel and shares with his stories the same effects. Somehow, although much of it doesn't seem to go anywhere, and in the end, we're just sort of dropped off, as if we had woken in the middle of the dream, the book is compelling enough to keep one seated and at attention throughout. Perhaps it's that Lin makes bears and dolphins and hamsters and pizza delivery so utterly mysterious that we can't help but want to know what's really going on. Think Donnie Darko. Okay, think Donnie Darko without even an attempt at the end to make sense of all of it. Think Darko's crazier moments strung together in interesting ways.

On "Love Is a Thing on Sale for More Money Than There Exists" by Tao Lin (4796 words) *****

This is the story that launched my interest in Tao Lin. It is one of his best, but it is also in some ways typical of most of his fiction, which is often similarly lengthily titled. Many of his stories, as does this one, begin by addressing a large macrocosmic issue--this is how it is in the United States on this date, and so on. And then, the story shifts into personal gear, telling readers about one or two specific people amid all of these events. But what makes the stories more than just refresher courses in current affairs is that the events are almost always taken to the point of absurdity. Here, we get terrorists--something that certainly hits the news each day. But the obsession is carried to the point of absurdity--concerns, for example, that terrorists might open stores and sell bad things. Meanwhile, two people struggle through their relationship. It's the latter part that is the heart of the story, but its the context that gives the story its zaniness and zest. Read the story here at one of Lin's blogs.

On "Bed" by Tao Lin ****

Just finished reading this book today. Having read it in four day, I found it a nice break after a long and eventually tedious diary that I finished reading last week. Bed consists of nine short stories by a at-the-time-of-its-publication twenty-three-year-old. I am a bit jealous but mostly amazed. I couldn't write that well at twenty-three, and I probably don't write as well even now (well over a decade later). About three of the nine stories in the collection were exceptional, including the first two; a couple were good; and the other four, well, I'm willing to dismiss them on account of the other stories (few story collections are consistently good, and even fewer have so many memorable stories). Lin has a style and voice that is unlike any other, writes dialogue that is crisp and surprising and metaphors that rarely fail to amuse. One of the best stories--the reason I'd discovered the collection--I'd read online a few months ago, about some guy breaking up with his girlfriend amid new terrorist scares. Another really good one, and seemingly the best on this read through the collection, was about a family in which all but one member died in pretty short order. Well, at least, that's how it starts. But then it backtracks, and you get this glimpse of the family through various tribulations until one glorious moment at the end, where everyone is happy, which is what makes the story ultimately so sad, because you know the disaster that is about to infringe on this one wonderful moment to which they've arrived. Precious times. Written by a twenty-three-year-old. How did he do it? I don't know. But I'm glad he did.