Bed (Paperback)

~ (Author)

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

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Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: Melville House (April 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933633263
• ISBN-13: 978-1933633268
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #75,919 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 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

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.

15 of 15 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)

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 in, April 8, 2008

By	a. kang - See all my reviews

i enjoyed this book. buy this book as a present for another person or yourself. buy it, do it, do it. you will feel good and surprised, maybe, to have it arrive in the mail. to feel really good you ought to buy it from an independent publisher because then you'll help decrease suffering, i think. this book makes me want to be nice to everyone, especially people who i think i don't like, which is silly because not liking other people is like not liking yourself, which is also possible but self-defeatist, um why does not being self-defeatist matter, uh i feel confused right now.