Douglas Coupland

Girlfriend in a coma

Karen goes into a coma one night in 1979. Whilst in it, she gives birth to a healthy baby daughter; once out of it, 18 years later, she finds herself a middle-aged mother whose friends have all gone through all the normal marital, social and political traumas and back again.

Girlfriend in a Coma

Charlotte Dann

I was really enjoying the narrative in the beginning, but then it flipped into pseudo-philosophical, paranormal preaching which didn't feel inkeeping with the mood. Not what I was expecting, mixed feelings, here's a video to elaborate.

Trever

Weird as hell, but it's Coupland touching on his themes in ways only he can

I actually started this book two years ago while in New York City with my ex-boyfriend; oddly, it still smells like his apartment two years later. I read a third of it then when he was at work and it was too cold to venture outside and set it aside as things got busy and life got kind of serious for a while. I picked it up on Friday night with 200 pages to go and a Young’s Double Chocolate Stout in hand and settled in for some reading. I was done an hour and a half later. Now, I’m the cheapest date around, tipsy one beer in, drunk after two, and I can’t tell you if it was the stout or the book talking but it was incredibly moving. I can see exactly why some people wouldn’t enjoy Coupland, he’s so damn earnest. By the end of Girlfriend in a Coma, I was a bit teary and entirely hopeful for humanity as a whole. 

In a book about a group of aimless friends who fall apart after their friend goes into an inexplicable coma at 17, we see the end of the world. Rather, we see the world ended by humanity’s lack of concern for it and more importantly, themselves. It’s part cautionary tale, something that I can see those who pose more than feel rolling their eyes at, but it’s also entirely a call to remember what’s important. The small, the magnificent, the screaming clarity of being alive, really alive. Two days later and sober, I still feel the pull to ask more, to do more, to enjoy more so I’m going to give this one to Coupland instead of the chocolate stout.

Girlfriend in a coma

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