Bed [Paperback]

Tao Lin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2007

College students, recent graduates, and their parents work at Denny’s, volunteer at a public library in suburban Florida, attend satanic ska/punk concerts, eat Chinese food with the homeless of New York City, and go to the same Japanese restaurant in Manhattan three times in two sleepless days, all while yearning constantly for love, a better kind of love, or something better than love, things which—much like the Loch Ness Monster—they know probably do not exist, but are rumored to exist and therefore “good enough.”

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This set of nine pseudo-autobiographical, woe-is-our-generation absurdist tales updates Oblamov for worried 21st century slackerdom. Lin's characters will be familiar to MySpace denizens, whether they're struggling through college in a busy city, stifling in an exhausted relationship just for the body heat, or missing their parents (but not knowing how to tell them without sounding as if asking for money). Settings are cheekily vague: "Love Is A Thing On Sale For More Money Than Exists," about a much-needed break-up, takes place during "the month that people began to suspect terrorists had infiltrated Middle America," while "Nine, Ten," a love story about two nine-year-olds and their divorced parents, occurs during the year that people "got a bit careless." As precocious children, depressing descriptions of urban pollution and beached marine life pile up, it becomes clear that Lin's subject is the inadequacy of conventional tools and wisdom for coping with the era of the War on Terror: "Was the future now? Or was it coming up still?... all that was promised... was not here, and would probably never be here. They had lied. Someone had lied." Such observations make the flat, matter-of-fact prose and aimless pop culture references come into vivid focus.
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Review

“Tao Lin writes from moods that less radical writers would let pass—from laziness, from vacancy, from boredom. And it turns out that his report from these places is moving and necessary, not to mention frequently hilarious.”
—Miranda July, author of No One Belongs Here More Than You

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: Melville House (April 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933633263
• ISBN-13: 978-1933633268
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.8 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,942 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tao Lin (b. 1983) is the author of six books of fiction & poetry. His writing has been published by GAWKER, NOON, VICE, THOUGHT CATALOG, ESQUIRE, THE STRANGER and he has been profiled by NYLON, SALON, NEW YORK MAGAZINE, LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS, NEW YORK OBSERVER, THE GUARDIAN. His third novel will be published by Vintage in 2013. He lives in Brooklyn. (Photo by Noah Kalina.)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars freedom from depression, April 14, 2007

By 

P. K. Almond "a mother" (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bed (Paperback)

After reading this book I felt like I wanted to be really nice to people. Tao Lin writes in a way that is descriptive but doesn't place any significance or emphasis on anything. He writes about lonely and depressed people who have been rejected from society which normal people would add drama to to make their story seem "heartwrenching" but Lin instead treats loneliness and isolation as "everyday facts of life" just as how it is a commonly accepted fact that there are some people born with brown hair and some born with blonde or black. Lin's dismissal of topical issues and distinctions makes BED a very detached and existentially consoling book for anyone to relate to. save the dolphins.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good job., March 11, 2008

By 

Zachary D. German - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bed (Paperback)

I feel like a jerk for being surprised that such a young writer could do what Tao Lin does. The beginnings of the stories in Bed make me feel like I am an ant being picked up and dropped in a swimming pool in New Jersey. The middles and ends of the stories in Bed make me feel like I am an ant not quite dying for some reason, in a swimming pool in New Jersey, hearing muzak being piped in from underwater speakers. They are all slightly different from one another. They are all good.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tao-ass Lin, January 27, 2011

By 

Megan Boyle - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bed (Paperback)

My friend and I went on a road trip this summer and she read "Sasquatch," "Nine Ten," and the story about the man who works at a library and sits in the back seat of a car driven by high school kids who either toilet paper or egg a house aloud to me. I had already read "Bed" three years prior to the road trip, but wanted to read it again, and my friend expressed interest in reading something aloud together. She would sometimes stop during the long sentences to regain focus and would ask me if she was doing okay reading. She read "Sasquatch" as we were laying in a park in Portland, Oregon and it was sunny and afterwards we both looked at each other emotionally, didn't say much, and seemed affected. I said something like "isn't this what life feels like?" I've read "Sasquatch" aloud to both my dad and my mom and a similar thing happened at the end, except when I read it to my mom it was on the phone and her voice sounded frail and she said something like, "wow, how beautiful, how sad." I have always felt kind of bizarre and lonely and like people don't see the world the way I do. The characters in "Bed" seemed to focus on small, sort of boring and sort of really complex moments that didn't necessarily have a positive or negative effect on them, but still felt important just because they were there, and that was enough.