After I finished reading Travels in Siberia, I found myself in a sort of critical reading mood—unsure what to read next, and fearful that whatever I read wouldn’t live up to the intelligence, humor, and range of Ian Frazier’s book. I decided that something short, light, and fictional was the way to go, and so I ended up grabbing Shopgirl from the shelf. As you might guess from the title, its protagonist is a sales clerk: Mirabelle works at the glove counter at Neiman Marcus, lives with her cats in a small apartment in Silverlake, and doesn’t have much of a social life. She’s depressed and quiet and bookish and shy, though also beautiful (and unaware of her own beauty). Mirabelle meets Ray Porter (an older man) when he buys gloves from her/for her; romance ensues; romance fades.
I saw and liked the movie adaptation of this novella back in 2006, and I’m not sure if that helped or hindered my reading experience: I kept picturing Steve Martin and Claire Danes, and kept hearing the movie’s narration in the book’s sentences, which I guess wasn’t really a bad thing. The trouble, though, is that this story and its style works much better for me as a movie than as a book. The tone is quite deadpan, with lots of not-so-subtle digs at various pop-culture types and stereotypes—the pretty but mean cosmetics clerk, the plastic-surgery-enhanced wives of Beverly Hills, the aimless/clueless young slacker guy, parents who give their kids ridiculous names. I don’t remember if the movie didn’t emphasize these things so much or if it’s just that what’s funny on screen can be grating on the page, but the not-so-subtleness bugged me in the book. The writing, meanwhile, sometimes comes across as clunky or not so well phrased, like: “Mirabelle’s own talent for drawing makes her feel comfortable and confident in this group, and having recently placed several of her recent works with a local gallery makes her feel that she is an equal” (22). Or: “Mirabelle wears her tight maroon knee-length skirt over low heels and a smart white sweater that sets off her blunt-cut nut-brown hair” (23).
Another thing that sometimes bothered me was the book’s treatment of gender. I don’t remember being annoyed by this in the movie, but I don’t know if that’s because the movie did it better or I just wasn’t paying so much attention while watching it. Often in the book, though, the story very much seems to dwell on the differences between men and women as such, as opposed to the differences between one person and another. At one point the narration refers to Ray Porter as getting an “anecdotal training in the understanding of women”—right, because clearly all women think the same way/act the same way/want the same things. At various points, Ray has trouble communicating with women he’s sleeping with/has slept with in the past, and again, it’s all very gender stereotypical, with him trying to say he’s not interested in commitment and the women wanting more from him. Mirabelle, early in the book, sleeps with someone just because she wants to be held afterward. Lisa, the mean cosmetics clerk, is beautiful and knows it, and sleeps with men because it’s a power trip. (She also obsesses about being five pounds overweight, though she isn’t.) It’s all a bit tired, a bit too obvious and easy.
Not that this book is totally bad; it did have its moments of humor and even grace—a really funny mistaken identity subplot, some satisfying descriptions of LA scenery (slow traffic, ocean, mountains, lights), some well-described moments of desire/lust, a great scene at a gallery opening in which Mirabelle is described as the only one looking at the art. And the end of the book, the last ten pages or so, is pretty endearing, in a romantic comedy people-pairing-off way but also because Mirabelle starts coming into her own more as a person/character.
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