Eleanor Rigby
A Novel
Book - 2005
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.
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Add a CommentAn extremely fast read, this book is about a lonely woman, Liz Dunn, that unexpectedly gets reunited with her adult son after giving him up for adoption right after he was born. Has a quirky kind of plot that lightens the mood of the whole story. I would say that this is not Coupland's strongest works of fiction after reading his other books, generation X and Hey Nostradamus!, although it is still not bad and worth reading.
Coupland is an excellent writer of literary fiction whom I've always enjoyed and I wasn't disappointed when I picked up this novel. He beautifully writes about the issue of loneliness for a middle-aged single woman living alone in Vancouver. Her voice is clear and the passages in which she reflects on herself and her struggle with loneliness are so evocative. The other characters in her life are equally rich that provide flashes of humour and contrast to Liz. The prose is harsh and realistic but beautiful at the same time, and the narrative, while heading to darker places, ultimately arrives in a more optimistic place.
I didn't entirely know what to make of this book after reading it. I kind of felt sad. But it's effective in its mission. Coupland uses the typical late twenty, early thirty year old who has the office job, 9 to 5 work day and how they fall into the safety of routine. In one of his books, he has a passage where two characters talk about boredom and one of them states that humans are the only species capable of being bored. It's true when you think about it. Douglas uses this a lot in some of his books and this is one of them.
Coupland has had the unique quality of providing both a cynical and a meaningful read. His books read quickly, they are often funny or at least quirky, and occasionally, provoke a surprising emotional reaction.
I had no idea when I decided to read it that the story would focus on both the basic emotion of loneliness and adoption. I won't give the plot away, but I have no earthly clue how Coupland understands intimate relations about the adoption triad so well.