Taipei by Tao Lin is an ode—or lament—to the way we live now. Following Paul from New York, where he comically navigates Manhattan's art and literary scenes, to Taipei, Taiwan, where he confronts his family's roots, we see one relationship fail, while another is born on the Internet and blooms into an unexpected wedding in Las Vegas. Along the way—whether on all-night drives up the East Coast, shoplifting excursions in the South, book readings on the West Coast, or ill-advised grocery runs in Ohio—movies are made with laptop cameras, massive amounts of drugs are ingested, and two young lovers come to learn what it means to share themselves completely. The result is a suspenseful meditation on memory, love, and what it means to be alive, young, and on the fringe in America, or anywhere else for that matter.
Download and start listening now!
"[A] modernist masterpiece…True, his characters are young people
living in Brooklyn. And he writes about the Internet. But we should
stop calling Tao Lin the voice of his generation. Taipei, his new
novel, has less to do with his generation than with the literary
tradition of Knut Hamsun, Ernest Hemingway, and Robert Musil…I
cheerfully wrote “Proust” in the margin early on—because the hero, a
young writer named Paul, takes such a meta attitude toward his own
memories.”
—
New York Observer