Shopgirl (Martin) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Shopgirl, Martin's elegant, bleak, desolatingly sad first novella, is in every sense his most serious work to date.... Martin's humor has always been about people who do not realize they are absurd. In 'Shopgirl that sense of absurdity is larger and more encompassing—something closer to an existentialist idea of the absurd, of life as defined by a tragicomic absence of purpose.... The novella has an edge to it, and a deep, unassuageable loneliness. Steve Martin's most achieved work to date may well have the strange effect of making people glad not to be Steve Martin.
John Lanchanster - New York Times Book Review


His writing has sometimes been sweet, sometimes biting, occasionally intellectually boastful- but it has always been funny.
Wall Street Journal


Shopgirlreads as smoothly and pleasurably as the novels of the late W.M. Spackman, whose An Armful of Warm Girl easily won the prize 25 years ago for best title of a novel about foolish 50 year-old men.
Los Angeles Times


Steve Martin, who over the years has bravely transformed himself before the public eye from brilliant stand-up comedian to genial actor to writer... [has written] a hilarious but intense first novella...which is all about happiness and how to get there... One of the nicest things about this novel is the way it effortlessly bridges generations.
Vogue


Who'd have thought Martin, known (aside from his acting) for his smart, snarky New Yorker pieces, would pen a tender love story?...Martin's shift from public follies to private frailties registers as courageous and convincing.
Entertainment Weekly


Movie star Martin shone in the comic essays of last year's Pure Drivel, but can he write serious fiction? His debut novella gives fans a chance to find out. Shy, depressed, young, lonely and usually broke, Vermont-bred Mirabelle Butterfield sells gloves at the Beverly Hills Neiman Marcus (nobody ever buys); at night, she watches TV with her two cats. Martin's slight plot follows Mirabelle's search for  "at least romance and companionship" with middle-aged Ray Porter, a womanizing Seattle millionaire who may, or may not, have hidden redeeming qualities. Also in and out of Mirabelle's life are a handful of supporting characters, all of them lonely and alienated, too. There's her father, a dysfunctional Vietnam vet; the laconic, unambitious Jeremy; and Mirabelle's promiscuous, body-obsessed co-worker Lisa. Detractors may call Martin's plot predictable, his characters stereotypes. Admirers may answer that...these aren't stereotypes but modern archetypes, whose lives must be streamlined if they are to represent ours. Except for its love-hate relations with L.A., little about this book sounds much like Martin; its anxious, sometimes flat prose style can be affecting or disorienting, and belongs somewhere between Douglas Coupland and literary chroniclers of depression like Lydia Davis. Martin's first novel is finally neither a triumph nor a disaster: it's yet another of this intelligent performer's attempts to expand his range, and those who will buy it for the name on the cover could do a lot worse.
Publishers Weekly


The action moves quickly, yet the narrative takes its time to develop, which is a very skillful bit of writing business. Martin's literary fable of a novella is disarming, particularly for those who come to it expecting the biting, zany humor of Pure Drivel (1998), but it may mark a new direction in a noteworthy writer's career. —Bonnie Smothers
Booklist


Martin was wise to make the book little more than one hundred pages. His brevity saves Shopgirlfrom becoming tedious, and his deft styling and nice descriptions keep the story flowing along.... [like] a shallow hypnotic dream that pulls you through to the end without leaving you feeling ripped off for the few hours invested. It's a quick and harmless read that shows the potential of a writer who shouldn't be satisfied spooning out irony for the New Yorker set.
Steve Wilson - Book Magazine