Having been established for quite some time now as a New York City (especially Brooklyn) microcelebrity, author Tao Lin may be breaking into the mainstream. Writer Hillel Italie’s enlightening profile of Mr. Lin will be appearing, syndicated from the AP, in hundreds of publications nationwide.
This is in addition to a recent Salon.com profile, a hilarious New York Observer piece, and a pending, heretofore elusive New York Times review. Pretty soon, maybe it will be unnecessary for Tao (or his army?) to put stickers of his new book’s jacket on newspaper dispensers in the West Village, as I personally witnessed last weekend.
Dennis Johnson of Melville House must be clicking his heels right about now, having recognized early-on the author’s talent, originality, and uncanny ability to self-promote in outrageous ways (e.g. selling “shares” of his book to fans as he was writing). According to the profile, Tao was rejected by some 25 publishers before landing at Melville. (If nothing else, the man is polarizing.)
Normally, with the release of a Tao Lin book, I would advise New York City-area librarians to stock up, but with these national publicity hits coming, I might amend that piece of advice, and tell everyone to stock up.
-David