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Loading... All Families are Psychotic: A Novelby Douglas Coupland
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. This novel tells the story of a dysfunctional Canadian clan that finds itself in Florida in 2001 to watch its only overachieving member take off as a member of the space shuttle crew. It's possible that one has never met a family quite as dysfunctional as the Drummonds. Their promblems include AIDS, liver cancer, suicidal depression, thalidomide-caused birth defects, baby-selling, adultery, illegal prescription drugs, just to name a few. You wouldnt' think that a book about this much tragedy is funny, but indeed it is. In fact, this book is very funny indeed. It's nearly impossible to explain the plot without spoilers, so suffice it to say that the novel jumps back and forth between the family's past and present, showing that they've always had issues. This is a great book for when you need something laugh-out-loud funny. Coupland has a tremendous gift for the bizarre and absurd. When you're done, you won't think your life is quite so strange after all. (  )lahochstetler | Oct 26, 2008 |   A disappointing read from an otherwise clever man. This one doesn't seem amusingly critical like some of his other works. It's just a depressing look at pathetic people. (  )ohjanet | Apr 17, 2008 | 1  I'd agree with the person who said "a gentle Sunday afternoon read" - this is an engagingly old-fashioned farce, dressed up with astronauts and retroviruses, but still revolving around adultery, embarrassing revelations about ostensibly respectable middle-class people, and a missing letter. There's a nicely-judged escalation of improbability building to a suitably over the top final act set-piece. You could easily imagine it being performed by elderly actors in seaside rep. Not that there's anything wrong with this technique - Tom Sharpe used it successfully for many years, and if you strip out the schoolboy smut, it's not so different from P.G. Wodehouse. Obviously it's being marketed mostly to an audience that has never read anything published before 1990, so the publishers can pretend that it's whacky and modern, but that Tintin rocket on the cover of the UK edition is a bit of a give-away... (  )thorold | Mar 3, 2008 | More of a series of a character studies than a narrative driven novel, this book feels a little out-dated in its style. The story is of a group of loosely connected family members discovering each others secrets and learning to forgive each other whilst trying to earn some illicit money and see Sarah (the golden girl of the family) off into space. The revelations aren't shocking and some of the characters are a little thin but the main two are well-drawn and sympathetic and the family politics are engaging and recognisable. I think what disappointed me most about the novel was its pace; although flashbacks were well handled the chapter spacings were surprisingly even and the story itself slow to develop and with a sort of textbook progression to climax and mini-epilogue. Not an unpleasant experience but a gentle sunday afternoon one rather than one I shall rush to repeat. (  )LittleKnife | Dec 16, 2007 | 1 This was a strange read. Parts of it were beautifully written and a treat to read. Other parts were so over-the-top, contrived, and ridiculous that it was just too much. I do realize that the author intends to be absurd, but after a while it just makes your eyes roll. Very Coupland, with the demure mother who isn't and criminal enterprises gone awry, etc. A mixed result. B- ( )claudiabowman | Nov 6, 2007 | 0.197 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0679311831, Paperback)Canadian author Douglas Coupland's seventh novel could be subtitled When Bad Things Happen to Bad People. As the estranged members of the Drummond family straggle into Florida for youngest sister Sarah's impending space shuttle launch, we only begin to glimpse the true meaning of the word dysfunctional. The family, plagued by terminal disease, financial disaster, felonious activity, infidelity, and violence, is forced--by a series of ever more fantastic occurrences--to attempt to deal with each other. That would be an easier task if they didn't loathe one another with a ferocity usually reserved for war criminals. It's not quite Jerry Springer-style tabloid TV set in Disney's Haunted Mansion, but the family members do muster the strength to insult, assault, and infect one another with abandon. With the exception of the family matriarch, Janet, they are unappealing and selfish, but without Machiavellian brilliance. Instead, they're inclined toward out-and-out stupidity, blinded by self-interest rather than enlightened by it. As they bumble through misadventure after misadventure, there seems to be no reason to cheer for them. Even Sarah, the family's shining star, has her dark side.True to Coupland's style, the book reads lightning fast. The author punctuates his narrative with clipped dialogue and punchy exchanges that advance the palpable sense of unease and tension running throughout. And amidst the acrimony, Coupland throws a genuine caper into the plot, involving Prince William's farewell letter to his mother, Princess Diana. Add to that the oppressive heat and the postmodern, pop culture junkyard of Coupland's Florida setting, and the entire book brews and builds like a roiling tropical storm. --S. Duda (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:57 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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