Eleanor Rigby

Description

Following the hugely acclaimed bestseller Hey Nostradamus! comes a major new novel from Douglas Coupland: the wonderfully warm, funny, life-affirming story of Liz Dunn, a woman who has spent her whole life alone and lonely - until now! This is a brilliant work of commercial literary fiction from an author who just gets better and better. 'My name is Liz Dunn. The Liz Dunns of this world take classes in croissant baking, and would rather chew on soccer balls than deny their children muesli. They own one sex toy, plus one cowboy fantasy that accompanies its use! Look at me: I am a traitor to my name: I'm not cheerful; I'm drab. I'm crabby and friendless. And lonely.' Liz Dunn is 42 years old, and lonely. Her house is like 'a spinster's cell block', and she may or may not snore - there's never been anybody to tell her. Then one day in 1997, with the comet Hale Bopp burning bright in the blue-black sky, Liz receives an urgent phone call asking her to visit a young man in hospital. All at once, the loneliness that has come to define her is ripped away by this funny, smart, handsome young stranger, Jeremy. Her son. Eleanor Rigby is a tale of loneliness and hope that introduces Douglas Coupland's finest character yet. Illuminated by a wonderfully gentle, searching wisdom, it sees Coupland ascend to a new level of peace and grace in his ever-more-extraordinary career.

DOUGLAS COUPLAND first came to prominence as the author of Generation X (1995). He followed that with a sequence of ever-more daring and inventive novels, including Life After God, Girlfriend in a Coma and Hey Nostradamus! He lives in Vancouver.

'A high spirited moving study of loneliness and all its opposites.' Observer Books of the Year. 'A powerful and moving examination of a life lived negotiating loneliness.' Independent 'Eleanor Rigby is one of Coupland's subtlest indictments yet of Yankee-yuppie culture.' Daily Telegraph 'Bristles with acerbic observations of modern life.' Sunday Telegraph 'Funny, unexpected and fragile, here [Coupland is] the chronicler of our potentials rather than our losses.' Guardian Praise for Douglas Coupland's fiction: 'Douglas Coupland has surely reserved his place at the top table of North American fiction.' Independent on Sunday 'Nothing less than sublime' Time Out 'Far too wise to offer answers, but affirms that seeking them is a necessary part of our humanity.' Independent 'Coupland's last four novels are so good and so distinctive that they seem to me to mark a genuine seismic shift in the literary landscape.' Nicholas Blincoe, New Statesman 'Coupland has passion and pace, intelligence and wit. If you find anything about the way we live now disturbing and wrong, he is your man.' Daily Telegraph 'Coupland at his best can make a single phrase say more than many another writer's whole novel.' LRB