The Reader's Shelf—One-Stop Shopping: Retail Therapy in Fiction

Edited by Nancy Pearl -- Library Journal, 11/15/2006

Folk wisdom tells us that when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. For those unfaltering and steadfast shoppers out there (and we know who we are) in need of an activity when the stores close, short stories and novels that focus on the retail world are just the ticket.

Steven Millhauser’s “Dream of the Consortium,” taken from The Knife Thrower and Other Stories (Vintage. 1999. ISBN 0-679-78163-3. pap. $13), is the definitive shopping tale, the saga of a normal, ordinary department store transformed into a fantastical haven of Moorish courtyards and other “theme plazas.” As one of the more enjoyable literary “shopping experiences,” this surreal story reflects Millhauser’s curiosity about the never-ending, almost disorienting way in which consumers seek to satisfy a quest for new experiences.

In his Pulitzer Prize–winning Martin Dressler: The Tale of An American dreamer (Vintage. 1997. ISBN 0-679-78127-7. pap. $14), Millhauser focuses this time on what fantasies a 19th-century builder will offer consumers. The entrepreneurial Martin Dressler develops his interests as he toils in his father’s cigar shop. By the end of his Trump-like ride to success, this forward-looking character has not only become fascinated with constructing increasingly larger hotel shopping malls but also with manipulating the world. Millhauser’s fin-de-siècle novel is a startling portrait of an American visionary who seeks to offer buildings filled with wonders to consumers, while remaining an obsessive but vacuous dreamer who quite possibly has dreamed the wrong dreams.

Elizabeth Berg’s The Year of Pleasures (Random. 2005. ISBN 1-4000-6160-1. $24.95; pap. 2006. Ballantine. ISBN 0-8129-7099-3. $13.95) introduces newly widowed Betta. Deciding to relocate from Boston to a Chicago suburb, she has an idea of opening a small boutique just for women, but she is a bit shaky on just how to go about it. Still, the somewhat fearful Betta, a flawed but wholly likable character, needs this venture, both for herself as proprietor and for the small town in which she is residing. Those who delight in the modest, simple luxuries displayed at these elegant one-of-a-kind shops will vicariously step into Betta’s life. Not only is her boutique a paradise of sumptuous splendor, but it is Betta’s way of bringing true pleasure into her life.

Taking the conspicuous consumption cake, Sophie Kinsella’s popular “Shopaholic” series humorously dives into the psyche of the compulsive, inveterate consumer. Confirmed, chronic shopper and—quite surprising—personal finance expert Becky Bloomwood launches her rationalizing, self-satisfying behaviors in Confessions of a Shopaholic (Dell. 2003. ISBN 0-440-24141-3. pap. $6.99). Becky’s imaginative solutions to debt challenges via self-delusion (“OK. DON’T PANIC. It’s only a VISA bill. It’s a piece of paper, a few numbers. I mean just how scary can a few numbers be?”) make for the most enjoyable humorous light reading.

In Shopaholic Takes Manhattan (Dell. 2004. ISBN 0-440-24181-2. pap. $6.99), Becky not only discovers Saks, Barney’s, and many more Big Apple stores but becomes embroiled in a scandal. Readers certainly know that Becky will continue to be challenged by her credit cards, but, still, Kinsella adds fresh takes on Becky’s life, including the wisdom about museum-hopping, such as, “You can come [to the Museum shop] and buy loads of stuff—and no one minds whether you’ve been to the museum or not.”

Just when readers prepare to say goodbye to Becky and her retail respites, she bounces back in Shopaholic Ties the Knot (Delta: Dell. 2003. ISBN 0-385-33617-9. pap. $11.95). Now newly betrothed, Becky is challenged with many catastrophes as she juggles her job as a personal shopper at Barney’s and dealing with two weddings. Finally, in Kinsella’s most recent visit with Becky, Shopaholic and Sister (Dial. 2004. ISBN 0-385-33809-0. $23), our heroine is shocked when she realizes her “long-lost sister” can’t abide shopping; hijinks await, and Becky’s misadventures continue to endear this ditsy but very vulnerable character to her fans.

Billie Letts’s debut novel, Where the Heart Is (Warner. 1998. ISBN 0-446-67221-1 pap. $13.95), is a humorous yet hopeful tale of 17-year-old Novalee Nation, traveling through Sequoyah, OK, on her way to Bakersfield, CA, with her loser boyfriend, Willy Jack Pickens. He promptly abandons Novalee, broke and seven-months’ pregnant, at the local Wal-Mart, where she delivers her child and becomes something of a local celebrity. Filled with romance, humor, adventure, and drama, this inspirational story of a down-on-her-luck young woman and the struggles, obstacles, and kindness she experiences is vividly told and believable.