Because of its handy size, I carried Steve Martin’s novella, Shopgirl, to the beach last Saturday. I planned on it being a beach-only read –a book that would span many trips to Sullivan’s Island– but to my lawn’s overgrown dismay, it became a read-the-whole-thing-in-one-day book. Stained with suntan oil and gritty with sand, the little hardback accompanied me all afternoon, finally coming to rest beside my bed, completely read, closed and dog-eared in a darkened room.
The next morning, I rechecked the spine for the author’s name. “Steve Martin” it read. I looked at it again; still "Steve Martin." Okay. Now I’m impressed. I’ve read his writing in The New Yorker, but who knew that a wild and crazy guy could write thoughtful prose about a sad and lonely gal?
Martin's protagonist, the depressed Mirabelle, opens Shopgirl doing what she does worst – selling women’s gloves in an L.A. Neiman Marcus. She spends her days “selling things that nobody buys … leaning against the glass case with one leg cocked behind her” and spends her nights talking to two cats - one normal and the other an “assumed cat under the sofa.”
On her days off, Mirabelle, an Olive Oil look-alike, acts out the role of a struggling artist. She sketches macabre scenes on small canvasses and ponders the existence of her phantom cat. She “replaces absent friends with books and television mysteries of the PBS kind” and occasionally goes out on the town in search of men.
And men she finds. Two, in fact. Jeremy and Mr. Ray Porter. Men on opposite sides of the gentleman spectrum. Comparing them is like comparing George W. Bush to Albert Einstein.
Jeremy is twenty-four, more dazed and confused than Mirabelle, and broke as broke gets. He makes a living by painting logos on amplifiers, and his “thought process is so thin that he has the happy consequence of always ending up doing exactly what he wants to do at all times.” He’s an airhead, but a likable airhead with nowhere to go but up.
In contrast, Mr. Ray Porter is in his fifties, a multimillionaire, divorced, and looking for the second love of his life. He plays the field and doesn’t understand why women get hurt when he decides to trade them in. He is an elder Romeo who owns a vacation home in Los Angeles, complete with two Mercedes and a fashionable L.A. wardrobe. His house is decorated sparsely and is kept impeccably neat, but “neatness … is not a characteristic of Ray Porter. Neatness is a quality that he admires, however, and therefore buys, by hiring an obsessive maid.”
So there you have it. An airhead and Mr. Mercedes, both chasing after a saddened Olive Oil. Throw in a jealous slut with a “lavender perfumed cunt,” Steve Martin’s sardonic prose, some chichi art gallery gatherings, and - bingo! - you got yourself an entertaining little book. Not a funny book, like you’d expect from Steve Martin, but a witty, thoughtful book filled with characters stumbling through life, unsure of themselves and doubtful of others. They dance an odd little number, spellbinding and grotesque, in the lurid light of Los Angeles. Mirabelle, Jeremy, and Mr. Ray Porter enter Shopgirl awkwardly and exit it with a well-choreographed flourish. Like clumsy pubescent teens, they grow out of their confusion and into themselves. They bloom, and Steve Martin’s reputation as a writer grows.
*Originally published in the Charleston City Paper.
The next morning, I rechecked the spine for the author’s name. “Steve Martin” it read. I looked at it again; still "Steve Martin." Okay. Now I’m impressed. I’ve read his writing in The New Yorker, but who knew that a wild and crazy guy could write thoughtful prose about a sad and lonely gal?
Martin's protagonist, the depressed Mirabelle, opens Shopgirl doing what she does worst – selling women’s gloves in an L.A. Neiman Marcus. She spends her days “selling things that nobody buys … leaning against the glass case with one leg cocked behind her” and spends her nights talking to two cats - one normal and the other an “assumed cat under the sofa.”
On her days off, Mirabelle, an Olive Oil look-alike, acts out the role of a struggling artist. She sketches macabre scenes on small canvasses and ponders the existence of her phantom cat. She “replaces absent friends with books and television mysteries of the PBS kind” and occasionally goes out on the town in search of men.
And men she finds. Two, in fact. Jeremy and Mr. Ray Porter. Men on opposite sides of the gentleman spectrum. Comparing them is like comparing George W. Bush to Albert Einstein.
Jeremy is twenty-four, more dazed and confused than Mirabelle, and broke as broke gets. He makes a living by painting logos on amplifiers, and his “thought process is so thin that he has the happy consequence of always ending up doing exactly what he wants to do at all times.” He’s an airhead, but a likable airhead with nowhere to go but up.
In contrast, Mr. Ray Porter is in his fifties, a multimillionaire, divorced, and looking for the second love of his life. He plays the field and doesn’t understand why women get hurt when he decides to trade them in. He is an elder Romeo who owns a vacation home in Los Angeles, complete with two Mercedes and a fashionable L.A. wardrobe. His house is decorated sparsely and is kept impeccably neat, but “neatness … is not a characteristic of Ray Porter. Neatness is a quality that he admires, however, and therefore buys, by hiring an obsessive maid.”
So there you have it. An airhead and Mr. Mercedes, both chasing after a saddened Olive Oil. Throw in a jealous slut with a “lavender perfumed cunt,” Steve Martin’s sardonic prose, some chichi art gallery gatherings, and - bingo! - you got yourself an entertaining little book. Not a funny book, like you’d expect from Steve Martin, but a witty, thoughtful book filled with characters stumbling through life, unsure of themselves and doubtful of others. They dance an odd little number, spellbinding and grotesque, in the lurid light of Los Angeles. Mirabelle, Jeremy, and Mr. Ray Porter enter Shopgirl awkwardly and exit it with a well-choreographed flourish. Like clumsy pubescent teens, they grow out of their confusion and into themselves. They bloom, and Steve Martin’s reputation as a writer grows.
*Originally published in the Charleston City Paper.
