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More copies of this ISBN:This title in other formats:Eleanor Rigbyby Douglas Coupland
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:A riveting, witty, and profound story of loneliness and connection from internationally bestselling author Douglas Coupland. The 1997 night that Hale-Bopp streaks across the skies over Vancouver, Liz Dunn has nothing in her life but impending oral surgery and an armful of schmaltzy video rentals to get her through her solitary convalescence in her sterile condo. She's overweight, crabby, and plain, but behind her eyes lurk whole universes that she's never had the opportunity to express. Just as Liz makes a quiet decision to seek peace in her life rather than certainty, along comes another comet, in the form of a young man admitted to the local hospital with her name and number inscribed on his Medic Alert bracelet: In case of emergency, contact Liz Dunn. A charming lost soul and a strange visionary, Jeremy upends Liz's quiet existence, triggering a chain of events that take her to the other side of the world and back, endangering her life just as a real chance at happiness finally seems within reach. By turns funny and heartbreaking, Eleanor Rigby is a fast-paced read and a haunting exploration of the ways in which loneliness affects us all. Review:"Liz Dunn is fat, lonely and has no friends. That sounds harsh, but Coupland faces unpleasant facts head on in this poignant, funny, intrepidly offbeat new novel. The only exciting incident ever to brighten Liz's life was a class trip to Rome when she was 16, during which she attended a party where she drank so much she can't remember what happened. Nine months after she returned home, she gave birth to a son, an event hidden from her family because of her natural rotundness. Liz gave the child up for adoption and then launched into a life of perpetual loneliness (hence the title's nod to the lonely lady of Beatles fame). All this changes when her now 20-year-old son, Jeremy, shows up. He's a great kid, but his story is tragic — he bounced around foster homes until he could take care of himself, he has multiple sclerosis and his body is rapidly deteriorating. Coupland, whose hip literary homeruns include Generation X and Hey Nostradamus, avoids the pitfalls of weepy melodrama with sarcastic humor, inspired treatment of the weirdness of everyday life and dark mystical interludes (Jeremy has bleak visions about farmers who receive odd messages from God). At the novel's spectacular, and spectacularly unexpected, denouement, Liz finally meets the father of her son. It's a bittersweet reunion and a perfect ending to this clever, inspired, brilliantly strange tale. Agent, Eric Simonoff at Janklow & Nesbit. (Jan.) Forecast: This is Coupland's tightest novel in recent years and will likely attract new readers while fully satisfying his loyal base. Six-city author tour." Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:"Coupland's weirdest and most accomplished work to date....Extremely funny yet quite moving (and even plausible): could be one of the first great novels of the new century." Kirkus Reviews Review:"Eleanor Rigby dwindles chapter by chapter into a high-art twist on chick lit — aiming for bittersweet but tasting at last suspiciously of artificial sweetener." Emily Nussbaum, The New York Times Book Review About the AuthorDouglas Coupland was born on a Canadian Armed Forces Base in Baden-Sollingen, Germany, in 1961. He is the author of the novels Hey Nostradamus!, All Families Are Psychotic, Miss Wyoming, Girlfriend in a Coma, and Generation X, among others, as well as the nonfiction works City of Glass and Polaroids from the Dead. He grew up and lives in Vancouver, Canada.
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