Camera Obscura
Fiction writer Tao Lin projects his life as a series of boredom-filled blog posts.
Joshua Cohen
Richard Yates
by Tao Lin
$14.95 List Price
So I went to a party in Bushwick, Brooklyn, some weeks ago, the height of summer's heat wave. Tao Lin was leaning against an air conditioner. I'd just been asked to review this book—his second novel, Richard Yates. I went over, told him I'd been asked, and offered him the opportunity to write the review himself, which I would submit under my own name. Bookforum would then publish the review, and a day or so later Lin would reveal the truth on his blog, etc.
Lin said he'd think about it, then contacted me the next day to decline. Which proves he's cannier than I'd thought.
I told him that I'd have to write the review in his style, then—submit it for publication and later, when the review came out, claim publicly that Lin wrote it for me. I'd have to write directly but without adverbs, without (illuminating or
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