Short Synopsis
From one of this generation's most talked about and enigmatic writers comes a deeply personal, powerful, and moving novel about family, relationships, accelerating drug use, and the lingering possibility of death.

Full Synopsis
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.

"Taipei is a book without an ounce of self-pity, melodrama, or posturing, making the glacial Lin the perfect poster child for a generation facing-and failing to face-maturity." ---Publishers Weekly Starred Review

"Taipei mashes up the literatures of intoxication (a la Irvine Welsh) and ennui (a la Bret Easton Ellis) to produce a surprisingly clearheaded cautionary tale about a drug-loving young Taiwanese-American art-and-book-world scenester trying to navigate the more consequential realms of family, romance, and adulthood." ---Elle

"With Taipei Tao Lin becomes the most interesting prose stylist of his generation." ---Bret Easton Ellis

"In this sardonic view of the urban male, Kirby Heyborne is an excellent choice of narrator." --- AudioFile

"Lin writes in a terse style, a little reminiscent of early Hemingway." ---Library Journal Audio Review

Publishers Weekly Review