Overview
The national bestseller — now available in paperback!
With more than 340,000 copies in print, Steve Martin's Shopgirl has landed on bestseller lists nationwide including: New York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times.
Filled with the kind of witty, discerning observations that have brought Steve Martin incredible critical success, this story of modern day love and romance is a work of disarming tenderness.
Steve Martin is one of today's most talented performers. He has had huge success as a film actor, with such credits as Roxanne, Father of the Bride, Parenthood, The Spanish Prisoner, L.A. Story, and the recent Bowfinger, for which he also wrote the screenplay. He's won Emmys for his television writing and two Grammys for comedy albums. In addition to his bestselling collection of comic pieces, Pure Drivel, he has also written a play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile. His work appears frequently in the New Yorker and the New York Times. He lives in Los Angeles.
Synopsis
Una sorprendente joya literaria Chico conoce a chica; chica conoce a millonario. Buen principio para una comedia romántica, aunque los personajes de esta fábula contemporánea no acaban de encajar en el azucarado tópico de Hollywood. Mirabelle, vendedora de guantes en unos grandes almacenes de Los Ángeles, es una mujer tímida e introvertida que no suele dar el primer paso y prefiere la soledad al esfuerzo de enfrentarse a sus fantasmas. Jeremy vegeta en un trabajo poco estimulante, dentro de una rutina insatisfactoria pero cómoda que no le exige mayores retos. Por su parte, Ray vive entre dos ciudades, un símbolo de su doble existencia como brillante hombre de negocios y coleccionista erótico que huye de todo compromiso. Los tres necesitan amar y ser amados; sin embargo, antes deberán aprender a apreciarse a sí mismos. Con ironía no exenta de ternura, Steve Martin retrata a la clase urbana de nuestros días, que, en el camino hacia el éxito, ha perdido sin saber cómo las claves de la emoción y el sentimiento.Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Martin is truly a Renaissance man -- New Yorker scribe, playwright, and bestselling author (his collection Pure Drivel landed on the New York Times bestseller list), and, of course, an actor acclaimed as much for his versatility as for his impeccable comic timing. Martin seems to have harnessed not merely one, but rather all of those talents for the writing of Shopgirl, the bittersweet story of one young woman's quest for the perfect man. Those fans and readers looking for laughs could be in for a surprise, however, for what Martin has created in Shopgirl, though not entirely devoid of humor, is a genuine and powerful work of literature. Highly recommended.Vogue
Steve Martin, who over the years has bravely transformed himself before the public eye from brilliant stand-up comedian to genial actor to writer... [has written] a hilarious but intense first novella...which is all about happiness and how to get there... One of the nicest things about this novel is the way it effortlessly bridges generations.(Vogue, October, 2000)Entertainment Weekly
Who'd have thought Martin, known (aside from his acting) for his smart, snarky New Yorker pieces, would pen a tender love story?...Martin's shift from public follies to private frailties registers as courageous and convincing.(Entertainment Weekly, September 29, 2000)Wall Street Journal
His writing has sometimes been sweet, sometimes biting, occasionally intellectually boastful- but it has always been funny. (Wall Street Journal, October 6, 2000)Vogue
Wryly omniscient, ruthlessly truthful, [Martin] calls to mind Austen with an up-to-date, masculine spin.Time
The book is like one of Mirabelle's sketches: small, deft, pensive, poignant — a moving still life.Richard Corliss
A delicate, poignant modern romance about a shy shopgirl. —Time magazineLos Angeles Times
Shopgirl reads as smoothly and pleasurably as the novels of the late W.M. Spackman, whose An Armful of Warm Girl easily won the prize 25 years ago for best title of a novel about foolish 50 year-old men.People
Shopgirl is an Audrey Hepburn of a book: slim, lovely, and ever so old-fashioned.Elle
It's the signature combination of exhilaration and vulnerability that Martin offers us with extraordinary confidence.Entertainment Weekly
A tender love story.Talk
Shopgirl has some of Chekhov's autumn light about it: a story remembering all the really fine recent things.New York Times
Steve Martin's most achieved work to date.New York Post
His prose is almost Zen-like and his revelations superb.From The Critics
True, he gave up the arrow in the head long ago, but how could a man who once acted out the Marty Robbins song "El Paso" with a bunch of chimpanzees in cowboy outfits (to supremely hilarious effect) settle for making dry Schrodinger's Cat references and drawn-out attempts at post-modern jokes about sledgehammers? Maybe it's his extended stay in Hollywood, or an overeager compulsion to be taken seriously as a writer, but Martin has suffered from a bad case of assumed audience.His latest work, the novella Shopgirl, may be a sign that he's getting over it. Forgoing his role as the intelligentsia's wild and crazy guy this time around, Martin has opted instead to tell a simple, mostly serious story in a simple, mostly serious style. Shopgirl is about Mirabelle, a twenty-eight-year-old who works in the glove department of Neiman-Marcus in Los Angeles, "selling things that nobody buys anymore." She's lonely and depressed, but she has impeccable taste in clothes. A fiftyish divorced businessman named Ray Parker, himself a natty dresser, woos her with some initial help from his nice shoes.
Martin nimbly jumps back and forth between the heads of his characters to explore their feelings through every step of the relationship. Ultimately, though, nothing terribly profound comes of it. The reactions of each are so cookie-cutter male/female they seem straight out of the kinds of comedy routines that Martin used to mock so well in his stand-up acts. Little else in the book is illuminating either—the natural beauty and artificial injection of Los Angeles are glorified and condemned in the old familiar ways. There's even a sappy subplot involving Mirabelle's fathertrying to get over the psychological scars of Vietnam.
Martin was wise to make the book little more than one hundred pages. His brevity saves Shopgirl from becoming tedious, and his deft styling and nice descriptions keep the story flowing along. "The overhead lights reflect in the glass countertop and mingle with the gray and black of the gloves, resulting in a mother-of-pearl swirl that sometimes sends Mirabelle into a shallow hypnotic dream," reads one passage. The book is like that too, a shallow hypnotic dream that pulls you through to the end without leaving you feeling ripped off for the few hours invested. It's a quick and harmless read that shows the potential of a writer who shouldn't be satisified spooning out irony for the New Yorker set.
—Steve Wilson
From The Critics
Recommendation: ***I'm Glad I Don't Work Retail Anymore!
Mirabelle Buttersfield works in the glove department of Neiman's in Los Angeles. She rarely has customers, but she has a rich interior life. A trained artist who battles the demons of depression, Mirabelle's days are filled with work, a few friends and two cats (one of which she doesn't see — just feeds).
Mirabelle's life changes when a millionaire from Seattle takes a fancy to her. Their relationship is open and non-restrictive, but from the experiences she has, Mirabelle is able to expand her horizons enough to be ready for love when it does appear in its truest form.
I liked this little book and recommend it with some reservations: (1) it's not light fiction as one might expect from a comedian like Steve Martin; (2) there is no fairy tale here, even though Ray Porter seems like a Prince at first; and (3) there wasn't enough character development (other than Mirabelle) to suit me. I look forward to reading more from Martin once he finds his style.
Logan Hill
[A] modest, sensitive book about love and sex from the female perspective, and L.A. fairy tale about a sweet, sad artiste trapped behind the anchronistic glove counter.—New York Magazine
Kirkus Reviews
The delicacy of Martin's perception is so appealing that hesucceeds in building a novella... [and] It's... reassuring to think of the
author... as a concerned parent who gently heads off every answer readers
could possibly have about this bedtime story of loneliness faced and
conquered before he finally turns out the light.