From the author of the "delightful" ( New York Times Book Review ) Mary Jane 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.
