Author | Douglas Coupland |
---|---|
Country | Canada |
Language | English |
Genre | Novel |
Publisher | Random House of Canada |
Publication date | 2013 |
Media type | Print (hardback) |
ISBN | 978-0345813732 (first edition, hardback) |
Preceded by | Player One |
Worst. Person. Ever. is the fourteenth novel by Douglas Coupland, published in 2013. The novel is the story of Raymond Gunt, an offensive and shocking narrator, and his journey from London through Los Angeles to Kiribati, an island in the Pacific Ocean, where he is to work on a reality television show. The novel focuses on this character's direct and inflammatory reflections on the world around him and the characters he meets. In an interview with NPR, Coupland stated that the novel was written as an antidote to an "epidemic of earnestness", and that the book was motivated by the question, "Why not just go against a trend and write something that might damage a person's soul if they read it?" [1]
Raymond Gunt's journey begins in London, where in a meeting with his ex-wife, Fiona, she offers Raymond a job as a B-Unit cameraman on a reality TV show titled Survival. While preparing to leave for this journey, he befriends and hires a homeless man named Neal as an assistant, and prepares himself to deal with a British/American culture clash.
From this point in the novel, Raymond Gunt's journey is one of offense, crassness, and shock. He travels to Hawaii, then to Los Angeles, with each moment of his journey being rife with strife, mostly of his creation. The characters reflect on this cultural clash between the United States and Britain, and the trouble they get into because of it. Raymond also finds Sarah, his love interest. From there, Raymond and Neal leave for Kiribati, after a run-in with the American military.
Raymond and Neal arrive in Kiribati to begin filming the reality TV series, while the world around them has degraded into a state of turmoil, which may or may not be their fault. International incidents play out while the characters explore the island. As world events spiral out of control, Raymond, his friends, and his family react and respond to the world changing around them.
The Scotsman described Worst as "profoundly bleak", [3] while the Washington Post called it "scabrously hilarious" and "an erupting Vesuvius of abuse and profanity". [4] The A.V. Club stated that it was "essentially an extended shaggy-dog story", [5] and the Financial Times said that the "plot is a cavalcade of more or less random events", but emphasized that it "succeeds by its verbal energy, the brio of its invention, the snappiness with which successive gags and ever more appalling atrocities are piled on." [6]
Microserfs, published by HarperCollins in 1995, is an epistolary novel by Douglas Coupland. It first appeared in short story form as the cover article for the January 1994 issue of Wired magazine and was subsequently expanded to full novel length. Set in the early 1990s, it captures the state of the technology industry before Windows 95, and anticipates the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.
The French Lieutenant's Woman is a 1969 postmodern historical fiction novel by John Fowles. The plot explores the fraught relationship of gentleman and amateur naturalist Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff, the former governess and independent woman with whom he falls in love. The novel builds on Fowles' authority in Victorian literature, both following and critiquing many of the conventions of period novels.
Girlfriend in a Coma is a novel by Canadian writer and artist Douglas Coupland. It was first published by HarperCollins Canada in 1998. The novel tells the story of a group of friends growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in the late 1970s. On the night of a teenage house-wrecking party, one of the protagonists, Karen, falls into a coma. More alarmingly, she seemed to expect it, having given her boyfriend, Richard, a letter detailing the vivid dreams of the future she had experienced and how she wanted to sleep for a thousand years to avoid that dystopia.
Life After God is a collection of short stories by Douglas Coupland, published in 1994. The stories are set around a theme of a generation raised without religion. The jacket for the hardcover book reads "You are the first generation to be raised without religion." The text is an exploration of faith in this vacuum of religion. The stories are also illustrated by the author. Several critics have suggested that this publication marks an early shift in the stylistic vocabulary of Coupland and, according to one critic, he was "excoriated presumably for attempting be serious and to express depression and spiritual yearning when his reviewers were expecting more postmodern jollity". However, the short story would later come to garner more praise though critics and academics have paid little attention to the publication in terms of academics' articles and commentary.
Hey Nostradamus! is a novel by Douglas Coupland centred on a fictional 1988 school shooting in suburban Vancouver, British Columbia and its aftermath. It was first published by Random House of Canada in 2003. The novel comprises four first-person narratives, each from the perspective of a character directly or indirectly affected by the shooting. The novel intertwines substantial themes, including adolescent love, sex, religion, prayer and grief.
Self-insertion is a literary device in which the author writes themselves into the story under the guise of, or from the perspective of, a fictional character. The character, overtly or otherwise, behaves like, has the personality of, and may even be described as physically resembling the author of the work.
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage is a book of short stories by Alice Munro, published by McClelland and Stewart in 2001.
Shampoo Planet is Douglas Coupland's second novel, published by Pocket Books in 1992. It is a thematic followup to Coupland's first novel, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. The novel deals with Tyler, a Global Teen, who shares many characteristics of the character Tyler from Generation X, the younger brother of Andy, Generation X's narrator. The novel tells the story of Tyler's life as he arrives home from Europe, and the fallout of this trip and beyond.
Eleanor Rigby is a 2004 novel by Douglas Coupland, about a lonely woman at ages 36 and 42. The novel is written as a first-person narrative by the main character, Liz Dunn. Its title is derived from the 1966 song of the same name by the Beatles.
A Wild Sheep Chase is the third novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. First published in Japan in 1982, it was translated into English in 1989. It is an independent sequel to Pinball, 1973, and the third book in the so-called "Trilogy of the Rat". It won the 1982 Noma Literary Newcomer's Prize.
All Families Are Psychotic is the seventh novel by Douglas Coupland, published in 2001. The novel is the fictional story of the dysfunctional Drummond family and their adventures on a trip to see their daughter's space shuttle launch.
JPod is a novel by Douglas Coupland published by Random House of Canada in 2006. Set in 2005, the book explores the strange and unconventional everyday life of the main character, Ethan Jarlewski, and his team of video game programmers whose last names all begin with the letter 'J'.
Miss Wyoming is a novel by Douglas Coupland. It was first published by Random House of Canada in January 2000.
GUNT, Gunt, or Gunts may refer to:
Douglas Coupland is a Canadian novelist, designer, and visual artist. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, popularized the terms Generation X and McJob. He has published 13 novels, two collections of short stories, seven non-fiction books, and a number of dramatic works and screenplays for film and television. He is a columnist for the Financial Times, as well as a frequent contributor to The New York Times, e-flux journal, DIS Magazine, and Vice. His art exhibits include Everywhere Is Anywhere Is Anything Is Everything, which was exhibited at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Royal Ontario Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, now the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada, and Bit Rot at Rotterdam's Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, as well as the Villa Stuck.
Generation A is the thirteenth novel from Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland. It is dedicated to Anne Collins and takes place in a near future, in a world in which bees have become extinct. The novel is told with a shifting-frame narrative perspective, shifting between the novel's five main protagonists. The novel mirrors the style of Coupland's first novel, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, which is also a framed narrative. On September 30, 2009, Generation A was announced as a finalist for The Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize by The Writer's Trust of Canada.
Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture is the first novel by Douglas Coupland, published by St. Martin's Press in 1991. The novel, which popularized the term Generation X, is a framed narrative in which a group of youths exchange heartfelt stories about themselves and fantastical stories of their creation.
Player One: What Is to Become of Us is a novel written by Douglas Coupland for the 2010 Massey Lectures. Each of the book's five chapters was delivered as a one-hour lecture in a different Canadian city: Vancouver on October 12, Regina on October 14, Charlottetown on October 19, Ottawa on October 25 and ending in Toronto on October 29. The lectures were broadcast on CBC Radio One's Ideas, November 8–12. The book was published by House of Anansi Press.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the 2017 debut novel by Gail Honeyman, and the winner of the 2017 Costa Debut Novel Award. The story centres on Eleanor Oliphant, a social misfit with a traumatic past who becomes enamoured with a singer, whom she believes she is destined to be with. The novel deals with themes of isolation and loneliness, and depicts Eleanor's transformational journey towards a fuller understanding of self and life.
The Worst Person in the World may refer to: