Search - Shopgirl

Steve Martin is a true Renaissance man. Readers expecting to find "Wild and Crazy Guy!" type humor in this text need not bother. Thoughtfully written, this melancholy novella is the perfect study of many May/December relationships, as well as the differences in the communications styles of men and women. I found it to be heartbreaking and beautiful.

Entertaining, but indifferently written. Martin is much funnier in other formats.

One of our country's most acclaimed and beloved entertainers, Steve Martin is quickly becoming recognized as a "gorgeous writer capable of being at once melancholy and tart, achingly innocent and astoningly ironic (elle). Beautifully written, this novella reveals a different side of Martin, one that is unexpectly perceptive about relationships and life and profoundly wise when it comes to the inner workings of the human heart. This book is about a "shop girl" - a young woman, beautiful wallflower ish kind of way, who works behind the glove counter at Neiman Marcus selling things that nobody buys anymore....Slightly lost, slightly off kilter, very shy, Mirabelle charms becaus of all that she is not , not glamorous, not aggressive, not self aggrandizing. Still there is something about her that is irrestible. Mirabelle captures the attention of Ray Porter, a wealthy businessman almost twice her age. As they tentatively embark on a relationship, the both struggle to decipher the language of love - with consequences that are both comic and heartbreaking.

From Publishers Weekly
Shy, depressed, young, lonely and usually broke, Vermont-bred Mirabelle Butterfield sells gloves at the Beverly Hills Neiman Marcus (nobody ever buys); at night, she watches TV with her two cats. Martin's slight plot follows Mirabelle's search for love--or at least romance and companionship--with middle-aged Ray Porter, a womanizing Seattle millionaire who may, or may not, have hidden redeeming qualities. Also in and out of Mirabelle's life are a handful of supporting characters, all of them lonely and alienated, too. There's her father, a dysfunctional Vietnam vet; the laconic, unambitious Jeremy; and Mirabelle's promiscuous, body-obsessed co-worker Lisa. Detractors may call Martin's plot predictable, his characters stereotypes. Admirers may answer that--as in Douglas Coupland--these aren't stereotypes but modern archetypes, whose lives must be streamlined if they are to represent ours. Except for its love-hate relations with L.A., little about this book sounds much like Martin; its anxious, sometimes flat prose style can be affecting or disorienting, and belongs somewhere between Coupland and literary chroniclers of depression like Lydia Davis. Martin's first novel is finally neither a triumph nor a disaster: it's yet another of this intelligent performer's attempts to expand his range, and those who will buy it for the name on the cover could do a lot worse.

People
"Shopgirl is an Audrey Hepburn of a book: slim, lovely, and ever so old-fashioned."

Trivia: Made into a 2004 romantic comedy starring Claire Danes, Steve Martin, Jimmy Fallon, Jason Schwartzman, and Frances Conroy.

From front leaf: Steve Martin, (yes, that Steve Martin), writes about a May-December romance that is comic and heart-breaking.

Great melancholy tale from a comic genius!

witty fast reader. fun.

I enjoyed reading this book!

The novel on which the recent Steve Martin/Claire Danes movie was based. Wry and amusing and a little sad.