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All Families Are Psychotic
 
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All Families Are Psychotic (Paperback)

by Douglas Coupland (Author)
3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
Price: £5.49 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Frequently Bought Together

All Families Are Psychotic + Girlfriend in a Coma + Life After God
Price For All Three: £16.97

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Product details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Flamingo; New Ed edition (1 Jul 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0007117531
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007117536
  • Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 126,463 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #13 in  Books > Fiction > Cult Authors > Coupland, Douglas

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
In All Families Are Psychotic, Coupland combines Anne Tyler's compassionate command of family relationships with a world-view that probably hails from a distant galaxy. His latest work of genius is fast-paced, blisteringly funny and the literary equivalent of electric-shock therapy.

NASA Astronauts must be the healthiest people on the planet, and Sarah Drummond, preparing for her debut launch from Cape Canaveral, is no exception. Unfortunately, Sarah's family, gathered in Florida to witness the take-off, is sick--in every sense. Her brother Wade, a low-rent hockey star whose only real talent is bedding women, is performing an elaborate tango with terminal illness and the Federal Penitentiary system. Her mother Janet is a devotee of Internet porn and outlawed medication. Then there's Bryan, who has nothing wrong with him except a highly contradictory desire to have children and kill himself. And Bryan's girlfriend, who really is called Shaw, and really doesn't care about much except renting her womb to the highest bidder.

While Sarah patiently prepares for outer space, Wade glimpses a lucrative, if desperate remedy to his family's manifold miseries. And as the countdown begins, the dysfunctional Drummonds--a family who have hitherto been unable to meet up without sustaining gunshot wounds--find themselves united in a last, labyrinthine quest for personal salvation. It's a journey punctuated by medication schedules, peppered with sleazy trailer-parks and even sleazier characters, a Disneyworld scented with dirty money and encroaching death. But somewhere along the way, the Drummonds are about to discover that they're not much different to any other family.

--Matthew Baylis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Independent on Sunday
A unique and wonderful book... Utterly fresh and thrillingly modern. Yet again, Coupland has zeroed in on where we are now.

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All Families Are Psychotic
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Customer Reviews

37 Reviews
5 star:
 (11)
4 star:
 (11)
3 star:
 (7)
2 star:
 (6)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (37 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars D.C devotee, 20 Mar 2006
By puddin (England) - See all my reviews
Absolutely wonderfull.No other author can make you laugh as often as he can make you cry. The simple idealism that this book ends on is beautifull. If only the carrot Coupland often dangles was real enough to bite so we could have more than a teasing glimpse of his world. It kept me distracted at work, I couldn't put it down. By far worth a read, and should this be the first book you read by him order Girlfriend in a coma and Life after God as back up, because trust me you'll want to start it all over again.xx
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Lack of believability damages this book, 8 May 2004
By Anthony Lynas (Leicester, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
This review is from: All Families Are Psychotic (Paperback)
After reading the excellent Girlfriend in a Coma and Hey! Nostradamus, I was really looking forward to All Families are Psychotic, but ultimately it was a let-down.

Basically, the book revolves around a dysfunctional family drawn back together because the daughter is a NASA astronaut about to go into space on the Shuttle. From this, there develops a sub-plot based on one of the son's dodgy dealings to generate large amounts of cash.

Coupland's writing style is informal and readable, and in places the book is funny - without ever approaching the "hilarious" status hinted at in many reviews. But any good work is completely undone by the contrived and completely unrealistic back-stories all the major characters have. Coupland's world-weary and cynical take on Florida is slightly overdone but also seems out of place in a book where the reader would have to be naive in the extreme to accept the characters and their lives as they are presented to them.

I couldn't recommend this novel because of this; try one of the aforementioned Coupland books instead.

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Not Coupland's Best, 13 Nov 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: All Families are Psychotic (Paperback)
Douglas Coupland's wry observations on Generations X and Y normally deliver witty dialogue and smart insights. But in this novel he puts his words into the mouths of the wrong people (particularly Janet)and the story is weak. The book suffers as a result.

Maybe all families are psychotic, but none are like this one. If you're new to Coupland, try some of his other recent novels - Girlfriend in a Coma, Miss Wyoming - and Generation X rather than this sub-standard book.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Not as you know him
All Families Are Psychotic is not normal Coupland fare by any chance. It's not full of of observation and apocalypse.

However, this is not a bad thing. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Heather Mclellan

4.0 out of 5 stars Weird yet wonderful
This was a wonderfully bizarre and amusing book with some really insightful and profound sentiments: It would make a great film. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Net

3.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps a bit too fragmented
I like Douglas Coupland a lot: his quirky stories show great sympathy for unpromising characters, and he often finds optimism and redemption in the most unlikely places. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Jeremy Walton

5.0 out of 5 stars "And they'll think they've just seen a star."
Excellent book. Not much can be said about it other than it is a must read, funny, interesting, and believable... well, maybe just funny and interesting. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Archy

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended
This is a very funny book, but also moving and thought provoking. The twists and turns in the plot were fantastic - DC has the most amazing imagination to come up with these... Read more
Published on 8 Jul 2007 by gerty guinea

4.0 out of 5 stars superb
the title of my review says it all really enthralling and hard to put down
Published on 7 Jun 2006 by Trudi

4.0 out of 5 stars Scarily amusing and relevant
I would urge people not to take some of the more scathing reviews here too seriously, this book is funny, warming, surreal, insane, and peppered with Couplands usual acts of... Read more
Published on 27 Jan 2005 by Mr AD Smith

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and Provocative
I enjoyed the book, but thought the reactions of some of the characters were not convincing. For example, as people become diagnosed as HIV-infected, it's all very friendly &... Read more
Published on 14 Jul 2004 by Keith Appleyard

2.0 out of 5 stars it's not right, but it's ok
I bought this book on the strength of the title - not the best way tochose something to read! The family Drummond are indeed a psychoticbunch, and for a rather flimsy novel it... Read more
Published on 26 April 2004 by DJW

5.0 out of 5 stars Whats an Average Family Anway?
A suggestion from a friend and the humorous title led me to read the novel ‘All Families are Psychotic’ by Douglas Coupland. Read more
Published on 28 Oct 2003 by finnit

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