We know, you get it: Melville House is Tao Lin‘s publisher. So we’ll try to keep the shilling to a minimum. But yes, we did just publish Lin’s latest novel, Richard Yates. And this is a book blog, so we can’t avoid writing about what’s going on in the book world. Since Lin is one of those authors who inspires strong feelings both for and against, it’s just too damn fascinating to watch how people’s reactions are playing out. Sure, we’d prefer everyone validate our choice by offering rave reviews, but that’s not why we publish him. Or anything for that matter.

Yesterday, Giancarlo Ditrapano‘s review in Vice went up and it’s just too fun not to talk about. It begins, “I never fucking liked Tao Lin.” So far, so good, right? It goes on:

I’d probably have liked his books more, given them their fighting chance, if he and his books hadn’t been constantly shoved down my throat every day of the week for the past few years. Shit gets old, quick. It’s like, oh, you have a sweet book out? Well, I just got blasted in the face by you and it online for about an hour while trying to look at something that doesn’t suck instead, so no, I don’t give a fuck about you or Gmail or the fact that you’re bored. I felt like this.

Then later, the shift:

But something must have happened to me, or to Tao Lin, or to the both of us, because I’ve been swayed. I kind of fucking love this guy now. His new novel Richard Yates is the most intelligent and hilarious book I’ve read all year (probably since Sam Lipsyte’s The Ask). There’s some deep psychic shit stirring in its pages.

I have been telling people that Lin’s work evokes intense reactions one way or the other–never lukewarm. Well this is both, and it offers the rare opportunity in publishing to include a quote like this on a future edition–“I never fucking liked Tao Lin…I kind of fucking love this guy now.”