Shopgirls
a novel by Jessica Anya Blau
About once a year I go through Libby or Libro.fm and search for my favorite authors and see if they have any new books coming out. I really enjoyed Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau (review coming… someday) and was so excited to find out that she had a new book out and immediately bought the audiobook.
I started listening to Shopgirls and then purposely gave myself things to do so I could keep listening. (Someday maybe I’ll figure out how to sit still with an audiobook and not doze off. old lady probs) I thought the narrator was perfect for the story. She seemed the right age and she brought the same naive & innocent feel to the audiobook that the character brought to the story.
Shopgirls is set in San Francisco in the mid 1980s, so BIG BIG points for being set in the 1980s. The main character, Zippy, sells dresses in the petite department at I Magnin. I wasn’t a typical I Magnin shopper back then – we had one here and I think I went once or twice before it became Saks – but I worked at a big department store in the early early 1990s, and even spent a few months working in ladies’ dresses. All of the story around selling dresses, having client books, finding matching shoes, fighting for commissions, shopgirl gossip, and even giving someone else credit for your sale when you get a big one… it brought back so many good memories. I was Zippy once, the 19 year old selling dresses with the older women in the department, trying to figure out what to do next with my life.
ALL of the I Magnin characters could have been plucked right out of my own memories, especially the characters in cosmetics. I remember getting very into the so expensive Erno Laszlo skincare (at age 19 lol) because I had lunch at the same time as the girl who worked that counter and she told me how amazing it would be for my skin. And I’d occasionally get my makeup done at one of the counters, though for me it was usually at the end of the day to go out, instead of at the beginning.
Something I’d totally forgotten about was how I would keep things on hold or stashed away somewhere in the stock room waiting for a big sale so I could get a better discount. I had a very tiny work wardrobe when I first started working at the mall (Lerner’s first, then Parisian, then Express over several years) and it grew and grew with every paycheck along with my credit card balances!
There were several side stories all going on while Zippy was figuring things out at I Magnin, and I enjoyed them all.
I thought the AIDS epidemic and its misinformation or I guess the mid-80s general lack of understanding was well represented in the story. I remember thinking pretty much the same way that Zippy and Raquel did until well into the 90s, sadly. The entire storyline with Zippy’s dad – I saw none of that coming and loved all of it (though I thought Pedro from shoes was going to end up being the Berber coffee’s partner and was just a smidge disappointed when he wasn’t).
The paper dolls made from hang tags. This was so beautiful. I remember the random conversations with all of the women I worked with – I was trying to remember some of their names the other day and three I remembered were Marilyn, Brenda and Debbie – and they are now like paper dolls in my mind. Marilyn had the best sense of humor and two or three little boys that she was always telling me stories about. Brenda was a new grandmother and a very proper southern lady with an aqua net hair helmet. She sold the most of all of us but was always so excited to leave so that she could go see that grandbaby. Debbie was a ball of energy and liked to try on the dresses when we weren’t busy and then hide them under the counter behind the bags until they went on sale. We had a stockroom, Debbie. That’s where everyone else hid theirs.
I’m amazed at how well I can remember my retail days even though it’s been 35 years. Books can just do that, I suppose.
I think I yelled at Zippy a few times for quitting the job at I Magnin to work at a… hardware store. (Come on, Howard.) But it was so great that she wore the clothes she was comfortable in, and the happy ending made ME happy too.
This really may be my favorite type of book… a single main character (that I relate to well) with many side characters each helping the main character in some way. Shopgirls was a particularly fun read for me because of the 1980s setting and the department store nostalgia and I look forward to the next book from Jessica Anya Blau!
