Author Jessica Anya Blau’s 2021 novel, Mary Jane, is one of my all-time favorite coming-of-age stories — a five-star summer read that offers a nostalgic journey back to adolescence and the 1970s. So you can bet I was eagerly awaiting the release of her new novel, Shopgirls, which is set in the day-glo colors of 1980s San Francisco.
Shopgirls is the story of 19-year-old Zippy, who works in petite dresses at I. Magnin, a legendary high-fashion department store. Zippy doesn’t have the money to buy any of the designer dresses she sells, but she rules the floor in her Salvation Army outfits and Vaseline-shined pumps and quickly becomes one of the store’s highest-selling employees. She dreams of becoming a buyer for the store, but in the meantime she chats with other salesgirls or with Pablo in the shoe department, and gets quick makeovers from the gals in cosmetics. If she and her colleague Miss Lena aren’t literally on their knees praying for customers in the dressing room, they’re playing with paper dolls that Zippy crafts out of hold tags.
And that brings me to the issue I have with Shopgirls: There’s a fine line between naive and childish, and Blau’s protagonist — and the novel in general — leans toward the latter. In less than 300 pages, we encounter Zippy’s work, friends, family and dating life, as well as serious topics like AIDS, but it feels like a short story dolled up with powder-blue eyeshadow. I never really connected to the characters, and by the time Zippy and her roommate ponder the back-lot behavior of Bill Cosby, it’s hard not to cringe at the incongruous wink-wink.
I had high hopes for Shopgirls. Unfortunately, it’s no Mary Jane.
