All Families Are Psychotic
Douglas Coupland
Flamingo
<p>The most disastrous family reunion in the history of fiction.The Drummond family, reunited for the first time in years, has gathered near Cape Canaveral to watch the launch into space of their beloved daughter and sister, Sarah. Against the Technicolor unreality of Florida's finest tourist attractions, the Drummonds stumble into every illicit activity under the tropical sun-kidnapping, blackmail, gunplay, and black market negotiations, to name a few. But even as the Drummonds' lives spin out of control, Coupland reminds us of their humanity at every turn, hammering out a hilarious masterpiece with the keen eye of a cultural critic and the heart and soul of a gifted storyteller. He tells not only the characters' stories but also the story of our times--thalidomide, AIDS, born-again Christianity, drugs, divorce, the Internet-all bound together with the familiar glue of family love and madness. Douglas Coupland was born on a Canadian Armed Forces Base in Baden-Söllingen, Germany, in 1961. He is the author of the novels Miss Wyoming, Generation X, and Girlfriend in a Coma, among others, as well as the nonfiction works Life After God and Polaroids from the Dead. He grew up and lives in Vancouver, Canada. All Families are Psychotic is the story of the most disastrous family reunion in the history of fiction. The Drummond family descends upon the state of Florida, cutting a swath through Disney World, the swamps, the highways, and Cape Canaveral, gathering to watch the launch into space of their beloved daughter and sister, Sarah. What should be a cause for celebration becomes instead the impetus for a series of mishaps and coincidences that place them in constant peril. In a family where gunplay, black market negotiations and kidnapping are all part of an afternoon in the sun, you can only imagine what happens when things take a turn for the worse. As the family spins dangerously out of control, the story unfolds at a lightning-fast pace. With one plot twist after the other, the Drummonds fall apart and come together in the most unexpected ways. "A powerful, redemptive story . . . A book about adults, written by a 40-year-old who has moved beyond any youthful alienation to an appreciation of the complicated nature of what binds people together."—The Miami Herald "[Coupland's] best novel to date."—LA Weekly"A powerful, redemptive story . . . A book about adults, written by a 40-year-old who has moved beyond any youthful alienation to an appreciation of the complicated nature of what binds people together."—The Miami Herald"Coupland has taken a great leap forward, using his ultramodern sensibility to tackle issues—parents, children, love, and death—as old as literature . . . This novel is without a doubt timely, but it's also the author's most potentially enduring work, one that should resonate with generations well beyond X."—The Ruminator Review"A fabulous modern-day yarn with your name all over it . . . a novel of unsurpassable humor told at a breakneck pace . . . a story of surprising depth."—The Providence Journal"Coupland is a beacon of hope—and an ultimately cathartic read—because he argues persuasively that opportunity is found in places that we only learn to consider after we find them the hard way."—The Kansas City Star"Everyone with a strange family—that is, everyone with a family—will laugh knowingly at the feuding, conducted with a maestro's ear for dialogue and a deep understanding of humanity. Coupland, once the wiseguy of Generation X, has become a wise man."—People"Witty and eloquent . . . a roller-coaster ride with humorous twists and violent turns, exhilarating highs and ominous lows. Mr. Coupland raises the bar for everyone, reader and writer alike."—The Washington Times"The launching of the space shuttle prompts a family reunion as the Drummond family gathers in Florida to witness one of their own, Sarah, take off on a mission into outer space. Family reunions, typically, are opportunities for relations to take stock of themselves, patch up differences, and/or maintain feuds. So it is with the Drummonds, who, despite their eccentricities, just may be the quintessential, twenty-first-century, middle-class family—only more so. There's the matriarch, Janet, serene at 65 and dying of AIDS; ex-hubby Ted, a philanderer, who shows up with his trophy wife, Nicky; eldest son Wade, also with AIDS, along with his pregnant wife, Beth, whom he met when she thought she had AIDS; brother Bryan, the family depressive, who, after several suicide attempts, now has a reason to live; and Bryan's girlfriend, with the unlikely name Shw, whom he met while setting fire to a Gap at an antiglobalization protest and who is carrying his baby, which, unbeknownst to him, she plans to sell. And then there's Sarah, the family overachiever, who is missing a hand because mother Janet used thalidomide for morning sickness and whose husband, Howie, is cheating on her with the wife of one of her fellow astronauts. Although the Drummonds appear to be self-destructing, author Coupland reveals himself to be, somewhat surprisingly, an optimist. For him, the new millennium is an era full of promise and potential miracles, despite the seemingly terminal state of the world."—Benjamin Segedin, Booklist</p>