REVIEW: Shopgirls by Jessica Anya Blau

JayneB- Reviews / Book Reviews1980s / coming-of-age / family relationships / Fiction / found family / mothers and daughters / San-Francisco / self discovery / slice of life1 Comments

… a new novel of found family, growing up, and the best and worst of the 1980s, revolving around San Francisco’s most exclusive department store, I. Magnin.

Nineteen-year-old Zippy can hardly believe it: she’s the newest and youngest salesgirl at I. Magnin, “San Francisco’s Finest Department Store.” Every week, she rotates her three spruced-up Salvation Army outfits and Vaseline-shined pumps; still, she’s thrilled to walk those pumps through the employee entrance five days a week as she saves to buy something new. For a girl who grew up in a one-bedroom apartment above a liquor store with her mother and her mother’s madcap boyfriend, Howard; a girl who wanted to go to college but had no help in figuring out how; I. Magnin represents a real chance for a better and more elegant life. Or, at the very least, a more interesting one.

Zippy may not be in school, but she’s about to get an education that will stick with her for decades. Her fellow salesgirls (lifetime professionals) run the gamut from mean and indifferent to caring and helpful. The cosmetics ladies on the first floor share both samples and advice (“only date a man with a Rolex”); and her new roommate, Raquel, an ambitious lawyer, tells Zippy she can lose ten pounds easy if she joins Raquel in eating only every other day. Just when Zippy thinks she’s getting a handle on how to be an adult woman in 1985, two surprises threaten both her sense of self and her coveted position at I. Magnin.

Set in the Day-Glo colors of 1980s San Francisco, Shopgirls is an intoxicating novel of self-discovery, outrageous fashion, and family both biological and found.

Dear Ms. Blau, 

The truth is that I wanted to read this book due to the time frame. Yep, the 1980s are my own coming of age so I remember all the big hair, shoulder pads, vivid fabrics, as well as

Zippy is a somewhat naive nineteen year old who was raised by her single mother in a small apartment above a liquor store in San Francisco. Mom met Howard years later when Zippy was a teen and the two married without Zippy even knowing. Yeah, it’s weird to me, too. Anyway now Zippy has somehow gotten her dream job as a salesgirl at I. Magnin and she fakes it til she makes it wearing thrift store clothes, selling stuff she can’t afford to buy for herself. Living with a lawyer roomie who gets Zippy to join her in writing out the lives they want (including dating and sex lives) in Day Planners, Zippy makes friends and enemies at the store. But Zippy is going to learn a lot of new things, including some stuff about herself. 

This is absolutely more light-weight fiction with no romance. I’ve seen it described as historical fiction which makes me yell in outrage, it can’t be historical because I lived it! Ahem. Anyway, I will be honest and say that apart from some window dressing, I really didn’t get much of an 80s vibe from it. No one used hair spray! Come one, we used to buy it by the case. 

Zippy is sweet and good-hearted and not much of a match for some of the tigresses who work with her on the fifth floor (Petite Dresses) but she makes some friends who look after her, give her make-up tips, pray with her (in one of the changing rooms with the large mirror), and believe in her when Something happens. The paper dolls stuff was goofy though. 

She also loves her strong mother even if mom married Howard who is a bit of a mess and should not have been allowed near a table saw. Zippy tries to be generous to her coworkers even as she outsells most of them with a smile on her face even for the rich snots who drop unwanted clothes on the changing room floor. She gets flirting tips from her roommate (who is 25 and somehow always available to go out drinking or watch Thursday night must-see TV shows despite working 50-70 hours a week) who urges Zippy to be the chooser of her own life. The friendship between the two was nice. 

“Shopgirls” took a while to grow on me and, truth, I had to power through about three chapters before realizing it’s kind of more slice-of-life for a while. I both liked and at times disliked the shop floor stuff. There are cliques as well as those co-workers with whom you will never get along. I can’t imagine working with customers so closely but not all the rich people are terrible – just a lot of them. Zippy and her mother are close which shows in how Zippy responds to a financial need in the family. There is a sort of strange reunion as well which is nice but I also wanted to snap at This Person that they could have done this years earlier. 

When we reach the end, Zippy is in a good place with some of her dreams coming true (though after reading up about the fate of the store in real life, I hope she was able to shift with the tide). She’s got gumption and integrity and makes an impression on the right people. Once I got settled into Zippy’s life, I enjoyed watching her grow and mature. B-           

~Jayne

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