Eleanor Rigby: A Novel - Hardcover

Coupland, Douglas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582345236 ISBN 13: 9781582345239

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA, 2005

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review

Liz Dunn isn't morbid, she's just a lonely woman with a very pragmatic outlook on life. Overweight, underemployed, and living in a nondescript condo with nothing but chocolate pudding in the fridge, she has pretty much given up on anything interesting ever happening to her. Everything changes when she gets an unexpected phone call from a Vancouver hospital and a stranger takes on a very intimate place in her life. From here the plot of Douglas Coupland's Eleanor Rigby skyrockets into a very bizarre world, rife with reverse sing-alongs and apocalyptic visions of frantic farmers. The style and plot paths are very identifiably Coupland--slightly mystical, off-kilter, and very, very smart. Ultimately a novel about the burden of loneliness, Eleanor Rigby takes its characters through strange and sometimes nearly unimaginable predicaments.

Fans of Douglas Coupland's later novels, particularly Hey Nostradamus! and Miss Wyoming, are bound to like Eleanor Rigby. Like many of his novels, the journey is strange and unexpected but you come out at the other end with a snapshot of a sardonic and bizarre but ever-so-slightly hopeful place. --Victoria Griffith

From the Inside Flap

A novel as compelling as Hey Nostradamus! and as inventive as All Families Are Psychotic, from the internationally bestselling author Douglas Coupland
"All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
The 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 verklempt-o-thon rentals from the video store to get her through her solitary convalescence. Though she is plump, quiet and plain, behind her eyes lurk whole universes, which she has never had the opportunity to express. Then a second comet traverses her life. It appears in the form of a young man dressed up in makeup and fishnet stockings who has her name and number inscribed on his Medic Alert bracelet: In case of emergency, contact Liz Dunn. One phone call can change a life.
The lonely planet, dirty bombs, fundamentalism, the war on terrorism, the unlikely places we find love, the peculiar power of visions: Liz Dunn's quiet existence is upended by them all. Who is more surprised than she, when she stumbles across a true-life happy ending?
Excerpt from "Eleanor Rigby:
"The summer of 1997, Hale-Bopp rode the sky above Hollyburn Mountain every night for weeks on end. Sometimes it was buttery and weak, and sometimes it looked like felt cut with blunt kindergarten scissors -- but not once during those weeks did I ever get used to seeing the damn thing up there. It wasn't natural. Nothing in the sky seems natural to me except the sun and the stars. Even the moon, for lack of better word, is on probation. Why the thing can't just stay full all the time drives me nuts. Crescent? Waxing? Waning? Oh, just make up your mind.

"Fromthe Hardcover edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1582345236
• ISBN 13: 9781582345239
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256