Girlfriend in a Coma: A Novel

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Girlfriend in a Coma: A Novel Page 28

by Douglas Coupland


  “Karen’s dramatic sequence of coma, childbirth, and recovery in Girlfriend in a Coma has real-life precedents.

  Read on

  If You Loved This, You’ll Like …

  THE SWEET HEREAFTER by Russell Banks

  Chilly metaphysical tale probing a small town’s response to the loss of its children in a school bus accident.

  THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY by Jean-Dominique Bauby

  Diary of a man who, with his left eyelid (the only surviving muscle after a massive stroke), dictated a remarkable book about life locked inside his body.

  DIARY by Chuck Palahniuk

  A woman keeps a “coma diary” after her husband’s failed suicide attempt. Dark, funny, and poignant storytelling from America’s favorite populist nihilist.

  AWAKENINGS by Oliver Sacks

  Classic account of survivors of encephalitis lethargica and their return to the world after decades of “sleep.” The inspiration for the 1990 film.

  Films

  AWAKENINGS (1990)

  Emotionally affecting adaptation of Oliver Sacks’s classic book, starring Robert de Niro and Robin Williams as Dr. Sacks.

  GOODBYE LENIN (2003)

  Fervent socialist slips into a coma days before the fall of the Wall. When she wakes, her son tries to pretend that the Wall is still standing, for fear the shock may kill her.

  Have You Read?

  More by Douglas Coupland

  MICROSERFS (1995)

  Narrated in a series of Powerbook entries by Dan Underwood, a computer programmer at Microsoft, this state-of-the-art novel about life in the nineties follows the adventures of six code-crunching computer whizzes. Known as “Microserfs,” they spend upwards of sixteen hours a day “coding” (writing software) as they eat “flat” foods (food that can be passed underneath closed doors, such as Kraft singles) and fearfully scan their company e-mail to see what the great Bill might be thinking and whether he is going to “flame” one of them.

  Seizing the chance to be innovators instead of cogs in the Microsoft machine, this intrepid bunch strike out on their own to form a high tech startup company named “Oop!” Living together in a sort of digital flophouse—”Our House of Wayward Mobility”—they desperately try to cultivate well-rounded lives and find love amid the dislocated, subhuman whir and buzz of their computer-driven world.

  Funny, illuminating, and ultimately touching, Microserfs is the story of one generation’s very strange and claustrophobic coming of age.

  “Coupland continues to register the buzz of his generation with fidelity.” —Jay Mclnerney,

  New York Times Book Review

  “An accurate look at a thriving subculture.”

  —Boston Globe

  POLAROIDS FROM THE DEAD (1996)

  Douglas Coupland takes his sparkling literary talent in a new direction with this crackling collection of takes on life and death in North America—from his sweeping portrait of Grateful Dead culture to the deaths of Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe, and the middle class.

  For years Coupland’s razor-sharp insights into what it means to be human in an age of technology have garnered the highest praise from fans and critics alike. Coupland has at last assembled a wide variety of stories and personal “postcards” about pivotal people and places that have defined our modern lives. Polaroids from the Dead is a skillful combination of stories, fact, and fiction—keen outtakes on life in the late twentieth century which explore the recent past and a society obsessed with celebrity, crime, and death. Princess Diana, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Madonna are but some of the people scrutinized.

  “Searing and unforgettable.”

  —M. G. Lord, New York Times Book Review

  HEY NOSTRADAMUS! (2003)

  Pregnant and secretly married, Cheryl Anway scribbles her last will and testament—and eerie premonition—on a school binder shortly before a rampaging trio of misfit classmates gun her down in a high school cafeteria. Hey Nostradamus! tells the story of Cheryl’s death and the knot of alienation, violence, and misguided faith from which her family and friends must untangle their lives.

  “A pleasure to read: clever, affecting, effortlessly conceptual. The current landscape, the mindless and endless landslide of mass culture versus individual vulnerability—no one sees these or gets to the heart of them quite like Coupland.”

  —Ali Smith, author of Hotel World

  ALL FAMILIES ARE PSYCHOTIC (2001)

  In a cheap motel an hour from Cape Canaveral, Janet Drummond takes her medication and reflects on her children. Wade has just been in jail, Bryan’s suicidal, and Sarah’s an astronaut waiting to board the shuttle this Friday. Where did it all go wrong?

  “Heartbreakingly bittersweet….This book will make you want to phone your own psychotic family and tell them how much you love them.” —The Telegraph

  MISS WYOMING (1999)

  Meet Susan Colgate—Miss Wyoming. Winner of a hundred teen pageants, child TV soap star, daughter of a hideously pushy mother. Now she’s reduced to small, brainless parts in small, brainless movies. She is also the sole survivor of Flight 802. If she were to walk away from the wreckage now, before the emergency crews get here, she could disappear and nobody would ever know….

  “Astonishing….Coupland creates concepts that allow us to get to grips with our unimaginable, real-life, end-of-the-world news.”

  —Literary Review

  LIFE AFTER GOD (1993)

  This collection of eight entwined short stories showcased a starker style to Coupland fans reared on the freewheeling prophecies of Generation X. Characters search for meaning and chinks of spiritual value within the mundane routine of everyday life.

  “Plainly, even beautifully written, in an achingly nostalgic present tense.”

  —The Times (London)

  “A wizard at cataloging our lives.”

  —The Observer (London)

  SHAMPOO PLANET (1992)

  Tyler Johnson, twenty-two, shampoo collector. Resident of a rundown town on the Pacific Northwest, he’s burdened with a hippie mom, a drunk stepfather, and a love life split between his girlfriend and a French summer fling. Only one thing to do—escape to Hollywood. Coupland’s X-files continue ….

  “A snappy analysis of modern consumer culture in all its paradoxical surreality.”

  —Mail on Sunday (London)

  GENERATION X (1991)

  Andy, Dag, and Claire reject the fast-lane pressures of modern life, moving to Palm Springs for a life of minimum wage McJobs and disillusioned storytelling. In Generation X, the book whose title gave a name to the sons and daughters of the baby boomers, Douglas Coupland unleashes an entirely new vocabulary for modern living.

  “A new age J. D. Salinger on smart drugs.”

  —Time Out

  “Fiercely comic.”

  —The Sunday Express (London)

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  Copyright

  A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1998 by HarperCollins Publishers.

  P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.

  GIRLFRIEND IN A COMA. Copyright © 1998 by Douglas Coupland

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © JUNE 2011 ISBN: 978-0-062-10595-0

  FIRST HARPER PERENNIAL EDITION PUBLISHED 1999, REISSUED 2008.

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:

  Couplan
d, Douglas.

  Girlfriend in a coma / Douglas. Coupland. —1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-06-039178-2

  I. Title.

  PS3553.0855G57 1998

  813’.54—dc21 97-49961

  ISBN 978-0-06-162425-4 (pbk.)

  08 09 10 11 12 RRD 10 987654321

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