A Truly Soul-Searching Tale

Douglas Coupland's new novel explores human emotions in the aftermath of tragedy

It was a gray, drizzly Monday at the offices of Random House where Tandem met with Douglas Coupland to discuss his new novel Hey Nostradamus!
After a quick introduction, Coupland immediately found a niche of discussion with the photographer, asking if he drove a Mustang, noticing his jacket.
Now one could possibly relate every major event in one's life to Nostradamus and maybe ask why others weren't or can't be predicted, or how someone will actually feel or react when confronted with horror. In history, though, in the recollection of events, the personal is never remembered, it is not visceral. The rapists, the murderers, etc. are.
Instead of the usual crime novel that follows the psychological mindset of the killers, Coupland has taken the root to explore a victim's relationship in the aftermath of a massacre. He has approached the subject with ultimate delicacy and thought. He has created four characters that make up this narrative - "four" like the quatraines of Nostradamus' prophecies. In an age of reality TV, it's refreshing.
"I believe," is where Cheryl Anway begins. In 1988, two teenagers, Cheryl Anway and Jason get married in Las Vegas. The couple did what many people do when they grow up and take on responsibilities. Yet the happiness is shattered and ripples throughout the fictional thread that unwinds.
The marriage frees them from guilt of their sexual encounters. Cheryl soon learns she's pregnant. A massacre unfolds in their high-school cafeteria at lunch hour where Cheryl is left for dead. The story jumps to 1999 with Jason. His story is poignant, abound with laughter and realities of the human condition.
Next we meet Heather, 2002, who loves Jason and who searches for him via face-recognition technology after he disappears. The author brings in mathematical equations, x's and y's, and cloning. Details are crisper than fresh lettuce.
The story of Reg in the last chapter is only 14 pages. It is a character Coupland says people may dislike because of something they recognize in themselves. Coupland continues his mastery of storytelling, his anecdotes of the everyday and paints a picture of faith confronting horror.
There is this shift of time that Coupland plays with - future and past. At times the distinction is blurred, as if there's almost an in-between space. It brings a critical point in the requestioning of belief systems and how tragedy and shock factors have changed our reality. The book is a confessional - a diary of everyday delusions.
Toronto is city 24 of the tour and Coupland seems a bit tired. "In the old days, the tours were spaced out. You'd do Canada, then the U.S. later. Then England nine months or a year later, but now, because of Amazon [books], all the English versions come out at once. And what they find now - read in Publisher's Weekly - is that older writers are being killed by doing 35 cities in a row, so publishers have had to grudgingly add more time in between. But the problem with that is that from the moment you get on the plane from the first city to the last, you can't write, or think, or concentrate on anything else. So you go kind of nutty by the end, because you haven't created anything. I think that it's its own kind of creative stress - going crazy from not being able to work. Anyway, I'm near the end and it's been a great tour."
Time and timing is an interesting factor in writing.
"I started writing [Hey Nostradamus!] December 2001 after September 11. I don't know when I finished. The thing with books is that you finish it, you write The End, and it's a year before anyone else looks at it. In that year, you've gone some place different in your head, and you're working on other projects, and suddenly, it's like you're graduating from school or something. They say, 'You gotta go back there' and you're like 'But, but' and they say, 'No, no, you've got to go back there.' And I have these dreams I'm in high school, and I'm always going back. To the point where it was freaking me out. So I went to see a person who specializes in dreams, and they said well, that's what it is that's making you dream these things. It's book tours. So at least I know now. When you know where it's coming from, it doesn't bug you any more."
Is there any relationship with Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine? Nothing more than the psychology of suburban culture, something Coupland has always explored well. He was in Paris and was feeling incredibly homesick. The movie was playing at a theatre there and he went to see it for the first time after writing the novel, and returned many times to see it as it made him feel like home.
He asked, "Do you ever feel homesick?"
"Hmmm... Sometimes," was the automatic response.
Tandem was curious of other projects the writer is working on. "I just write novels. See, I wasn't a very good student because I never liked homework... I wrote a review once and it felt like homework," says the Vancouver writer, well known for novels like Generation X.
Coupland is an artist and a writer, who studied at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Last year he had an exhibition at the Monte Clark Gallery in Toronto The Canada Pictures. The photographic images represented provinces, which were as humorous as his writing. However Coupland sees the two streams of his artistic practice similar, except they are two ways of creating the picture, one using words and the other a brush.
Only getting through a couple of questions, Coupland ended with: "It is a rainy day."
The book lets the reader ponder deeply. "God is nowhere God is now here," the questioning of faith and belief systems that takes this novel to soaring heights. As Plato would see it, Douglas Coupland may be a seer of sorts - a truth-teller leading the way out of darkness.
Douglas Coupland will make an appearance at the 24th Annual International Festival of Authors.

Publication Date: 2003-10-19
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=3270