- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Flamingo; 1st. Edition edition (Feb 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0002259834
- ISBN-13: 978-0002259835
- Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 13.6 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 888,041 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Heroine of this outstanding tale is Miss Wyoming, Susan Colgate, teen beauty-queen and low-rent soap actress. Dragooned into stardom by her demonically pushy, hillbilly mother, Susan's career is at rock-bottom. When she finds herself sole survivor of an air-crash, she views it as her opportunity to vanish, embarking on a voyage of personal discovery.
Meanwhile, John Johnson, debauched star of such Hollywood legends as Bel Air PI², also longs to vanish. After a near-death experience, where he is treated to a vision of Susan's face, he roams the badlands of the western States. Back in L.A., a chance meeting sets him on a mission to unravel the mystery of Susan Colgate.
Coupland has a genius for capturing the absurdities of modern existence and using them as backdrop for a tale of hope and fulfilment. The curses of the cyber-age--junk-mail and web-junkies, fast food, jaded TV weather forecasters--teem around the central story, creating a vivid and darkly funny tale. His peripheral characters are just as richly drawn. A scriptwriter and his supernaturally intelligent girlfriend, a recluse who spends his evening generating Internet rumours--all manage to be blessed and cursed, numbed by their pointless existences but full of humanity when put to the test. Picture Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut co-writing Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and you come halfway to grasping Coupland's uniquely funny and thoughtful brand of storytelling. --Matthew Baylis
Review
Praise for Girlfriend in a Coma:
‘An ambitious new urban myth… Coupland has managed to marry a parable to his sociological observational skills, at the same time avoiding a mawkish, sentimental story… A dark, prescient book, a meditation on the mystery of life, the next step in a continuing search for meaning.’
Mike Bradley, The Times
‘A millennial novel of a very subtle and interesting kind. It’s visually brilliant, full of extraordinary imagery, fresh like new paint. I was absolutely knocked over by it.’
Tom Paulin, Late Review
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
A self-confessed Coupland junkie, I don't know quite what to make of his latest. It once again has uncharted subject matter, glorious characters-as-possibilities, and pretty much all the warmth and zeitgeist-grabbing accuracy of his previous works, yet it somehow doesn't allow the reader to engage with it in the same way as "GenX" and the story collection "Life after God".
Where the hyperreal fantasy episodes of "Girlfriend in a Coma" pulled you in and left you breathless, the flights from reality in Miss Wyoming come across as absurd plot contrivances. They wink at you with a "God, you wouldn't believe this if it happened in a book" impudence, but end up causing the same empty ache that John experiences on realising that Susan didn't appear to him in a sublime vision at all, but was merely his own post-resuscitation confusion of a mid afternoon TV re-run.
Having said that, Vanessa, the freakishy intelligent think-tanker and Ryan, the shrine-building scriptwriter are my favourite DC creations to date. A book to re-read, if not to treasure forever.
Miss Wyoming is possibly Coupland's most accessible novel to date. It's also one of his most best and most readable.
A tale of two individual people as they try to find meaning in their lives, the narrative is excellent as their stories cleverly reflect each other.
The book also horrifies as it captures the disturbing nature of the child/teen-beauty queen circuit and its uncomfortable implications.
A very good read.
Although I just love DC's style of writing, and am blown away by his observations of the mundane, I often find that the endings of his stories are never as gripping or moving as the middle bits. I guess I'm not into finding myself yet, so maybe I'm missing the point, but I kind of cringe when DC goes all evangelist on us. Miss Wyoming is well worth reading, but, sorry to say, could be better.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
More optimistic than 'Coma'
I have read and enjoyed all of Coupland's work, but I've always had to make sure I was in a positive frame of mind before starting (because I knew I'd be depressed by the end). Read more
Published on 24 July 2000 by "murisonj"
GREAT!
Simply Brilliant! Another great book from Coupland.Better than Gen X, Shampoo Planet on a par with Microserfs and Girlfriend In A Coma.
BUY THIS BOOK NOW YOU FOOL!
Published on 22 July 2000
Entertaining, back to near his best
It took me a long time to get the courage to buy this book after reading the surreal piece of garbage that was 'GF in a coma' but i'm glad i did. Read more
Published on 9 Jun 2000
Great start but goes downhill
I thought Microserfs was great - but I can't help feeling that DC's other books have strong beginnings and weak endings. This was no exception. Read more
Published on 26 April 2000 by douglas.miller1@virgin.net
Coupland moves on....
Douglas Coupland is one of America's best writers at the moment, and Miss Wyoming sees him moving on from ultra-zeitgeisty novels to something with a wider resonance. Read more
Published on 22 April 2000
doug becomes a novelist
all DC's books are about re-inventing people. so don't read this as a DC book. he re-invents himself with every re-invention story. Read more
Published on 20 April 2000 by thomsmith
not quite his best
In Miss Wyoming Coupland has continued to distance himself from a purely zeitgeber driven novel like Gen X as he did to a much greater degree in Life After God. Read more
Published on 12 Mar 2000
Unengaging, unsatisfying.....
Short changed. The outside back cover description of the plot gave rather too much away. Consequently, expectations went unfulfilled. Read more
Published on 25 Feb 2000 by robert.baldwin@england.com
Interesting, Distracting, Falls short of his best
Grabs you and keeps your interest fairly successfully. Most of it is vintage Coupland but I feel that I haver to score a 3 because I am comparing it to "Microserfs" or... Read more
Published on 24 Feb 2000 by Mr. K. M. Chesters
Forgettable
Coupland grants himself his own winner's sash on the US casebound edition of this novel, but for all its pretty bits, it is unmemorable. Read more
Published on 18 Feb 2000 by rowland.morgan@virgin.net
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