Supremacist

A man named David Shapiro, the creator of Pitchfork Reviews Reviews and You’re Not That Much Use to Anyone, embarks on a global journey to every Supreme store in this semi-autobiographical novel. His friend Camilla isn’t “doing anything in January” and agrees to go along—to Los Angeles, Japan, and London, before returning to New York—and then asks, “What’s Supreme?” David explains it’s a men’s skate brand, but to him, the shops represent something more—it’s “like a museum”—and Supreme isn’t simply a brand, but a “long-term conceptual art project about capitalism, consumerism, property-as-theft, corporate destruction, ideas like that.” Then he backs away from his hot take: “Everything I said was corny and didactic. I don’t know exactly what Supreme is... I’m trying to figure it out.” Despite the well-formed itinerary, David is adrift in alcohol and pills. Camilla is a blithe foil to his disaffected self-pity. Adding another layer of abstraction, the novel is punctuated by photographs of the Supreme products that inspire the narrator’s reverence, collected by the author on a similar trip around the world. David makes for weirdly exasperating yet not unenjoyable company, and the pleasure of this story is his uncanny knowledge of his prickly appeal. (July)