Eeeee Eee Eeee [Paperback]

Tao Lin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2007

“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

“Tao Lin is the most distinctive young writer I've come upon in a long time: the most intrepid, the funniest, the strangest. He is completely unlike anyone else.”
– Brian Morton, author of Starting Out in the Evening

Confused yet intelligent animals attempt to interact with confused yet intelligent humans, resulting in the death of Elijah Wood, Salman Rushdie, and Wong Kar-Wai; the destruction of a Domino's Pizza delivery car in Orlando; and a vegan dinner at a sushi restaurant in Manhattan attended by a dolphin, a bear, a moose, an alien, three humans, and the President of the United States of America, who lectures on the arbitrary nature of consciousness, truth, and the universe before getting drunk and playing poker.

“Tao Lin’s fiction will kick your ass and say thank you afterwards!”
– Amy Fusselman, author of The Pharmacist’s Mate

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Poet and blogger Lin's debut novel uneasily documents the life of Andrew, a recent college graduate working at Domino's Pizza while over-analyzing every aspect of his life: past, present and futureless. He drives through the suburbs reminiscing about college life in New York and his ex-girlfriend, stopping occasionally to express his boredom to his best friend Steve. When at one point, Andrew states that he wants to "wreak complex and profound havoc" upon capitalist establishments such as McDonald's, it feels like Lin is attempting the same kind of attack on organized art. The novel, while short on plot, makes abrupt shifts in setting and point of view, and is pierced throughout by celebrity cameos and surreal touches: bears, dolphins (who say "Eeeee Eee Eeee" to express emotion, in spite of their ability to speak like humans), Salman Rushdie, and the president make grandiose declarations that are heavily saturated with the same sardonic wit displayed by Andrew and his friends. The novel dips dangerously into metafiction, with Andrew in the middle of "writing a book of stories about people who are doomed." The characters' repetitive thoughts and conversations become strangely hypnotic, however, and Lin's sympathetic fascination with the meaning of life is full of profound and often hilarious insights.
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About the Author

Tao Lin's writing has appeared in the Mississippi Review, the Cincinnati Review, Punk Planet, Bear Parade, Other Voices, Nerve, and Noon. He is the winner of the One Story short story contest and New York University's undergraduate creative writing prize, and is the author of a poetry chapbook entitled You Are a Little Bit Happier Than I Am, which won the Action Books prize. His blog is called "Reader of Depressing Books." He was born in Virginia in 1983, grew up in Florida, and currently lives in Brooklyn.

Product Details

• Paperback: 211 pages
• Publisher: Melville House (April 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933633255
• ISBN-13: 978-1933633251
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.5 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #182,474 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

57 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book about dominos pizza ever written., November 21, 2007

By 

Aziraphael (Silver Spring, Maryland United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eeeee Eee Eeee (Paperback)

"Sometimes when dolphins went to playgrounds alone they did the monkeybars and went to the swings and on the swings thought, "I hate this stupid world."

They thought, "I hate it."

They cried a little with the wind against their face.
They felt so bad that they went away.

And found Elijah Wood and told Elijah Wood to go with them and Elijah Wood went--because he thought it was a movie. Elijah Wood and other celebrities like Salman Rushdie rode dolphins in rivers. Salman Rushdie felt proud and famous. And the dolphins swam to islands and beat Elijah Wood and the other famous people with heavy branches. They cried when they murdered human beings, and it was terrible.

One dolphin had a battle axe and killed Wong Kar-Wai."

That's an excerpt from Tao Lin's new book Eeeee Eee Eeee. I'm pretty sure the book doesn't mean anything which is why you should read it. It's about post-ironic boredom and laziness and saying things like "I don't know how to have fun" all the time.

If you care the book is kind of like if Holden Caulfield wrote an autobiography in the middle of a Hunter S. Thompson freakout. It is very "Kafka-esque" which is a phrase that annoys the hell out of my friend Rachel, and rightfully so because it's a dumb thing to say.

Go pick it up and read it and hate it (probably), but read it. It will change nothing about you but it will make you think about bears teleporting and throwing blankets on top of moose(s), which is so much better than most things.

37 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tao Lin's best, April 14, 2007

By 

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

This review is from: Eeeee Eee Eeee (Paperback)

Although Tao Lin has been consecutively strong in all of his books so far, I think EEEEE EEE EEEE is his best. The book not only confronts the indifference of the universe but sarcastically laughs in its face. The book has a lot of dolphins and bears trying to cope with life's disappointments such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Elijah Wood, and the DaVinci Code. The DaVinci Code isn't actually mentioned in the books as the other things are but if it were a moose would probably look at it and then scream in agony before running in front of a subway train. I recommend this book for all ages. I first read it with my kids and they both liked it and often beg for me to read chapters of it to them before they go to sleep.

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SPOILER ALERT, April 29, 2007

By 

suburban sig "signeficant" (houston, tx) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eeeee Eee Eeee (Paperback)

Andrew just graduated college. He has no job, no friends, and no funds. He moves from New York City back to his parents' house in Florida and gets a job as a delivery guy for Domino's Pizza. After a socially awkward experience of bringing some pizzas and his coworker Joanna to her house, Andrew is approached by a bear who leads him down a secret passageway under a patch of grass to an underground world in which bears coexist with moose, dolphins, hamsters, and aliens.



Enter the literary world of Tao Lin's Eeeee Eee Eeee: self-conscious, surreal, and ambivalently nihilistic. The novel is at the same time heartbreaking and hilarious. Tao Lin's bleak and syntactically direct style undermines the notion of an overt social commentary, but the novel is chalk-full of it. The main character Andrew is lonely, spends a lot of his time isolated, and pretty much ponders the absurdity of everything. Eeeee Eee Eeee alludes to the absurdity of social etiquette, commercialism, unity, separateness, Modern thought, Post-modern thought, other binary philosophies, and even meaning itself.



Take for example when Andrew meets the President of the United States, who is really just a bored alien in need of a goal. The president concludes that life is meaningless, but then questions "If life was really meaningless you wouldn't worry about things." Andrew worries about a lot of things: why his internet girlfriend Sara never comes to visit him even though she promised, why people confuse his jokes for complaining, why the bear never finishes the novel he is writing, and why the dolphin he is talking to murders Elijah Wood and then "drags Elijah's corpse into a cave and then sits on it."



Truly, Tao Lin accurately depicts the mind of the socially isolated with his subject Andrew. Although the reader can recognize Andrew's symptoms of Midtwenties-itis, Eeeee Eee Eee is far from your typically romanticized "Oh no I just graduated college and I don't know who I am or what to do with myself" novel. Anyone who has ever questioned their existence should read it. Perhaps it would make a thoughtful gift for someone who will or has recently graduated