All Families are Psychotic (Paperback)

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

'Douglas Coupland is one of the freshest, most exciting voices of the novel He has a wonderful talent' tom wolfe 'Coupland has passion and pace, intelligence and wit. If you find anything about the way we live now disturbing and wrong, he is your man. (He is my man.)' Daily Telegraph 'Coupland at his best can make a single phrase say more than many another writer's whole novel.' jenny turner, London Review of Books

Douglas Coupland first gained international attention with the groundbreaking Generation X back in 1991, and in this latest novel he follows the trials and tribulations of the acutely dysfunctional Drummond clan, when they assemble in Florida to watch Sarah Drummond make her debut launch from Cape Canaveral. Imagine an unholy alliance of The Simpsons, Jerry Springer's most outlandish guests and the kids from South Park, and you begin to get a glimmer of life chez Drummond. Janet Drummond, the 65-year-old matriarch of this mad bunch of misfits, contracted HIV in a freak accident when her ex-husband shot her oldest son, Wade; the bullet passed through his liver and lodged in her sternum. Astronaut Sarah is the sanest of the Drummond children but she has her own problems: she was born without a hand because Janet took thalidomide during her pregnancy, and she has just discovered that her husband, Howie, is having a fling with a fellow-astronaut's wife. The youngest Drummond, Bryan, suffers from suicidal tendencies and has shacked up with the rebellious Shaw, who seems hell-bent on peddling her unborn child to a couple of unscrupulous baby merchants. The plot tears along at a frantic pace, throwing in a stolen letter from Princess Diana's coffin and a pharmaceutical billionaire with an interesting in human cloning. Yet amongst so many crazy characters and a plot which becomes increasingly convoluted the presence of Janet remains a central stabilising force; she is the eye of the hurricane which is the Drummond family. Just as we all laugh at The Simpsons while owning up to the programme's essential truth about American family life, so the Drummonds are essentially a close, loyal family unit, despite all the hyperbole and their almost farcical adventures. The family is psychotic, but Janet's selflessness binds up the wounds of these crazy people and her unconditional love is their salvation. (Kirkus UK)

A thin, occasionally maudlin poke at the pharmaceutical industry. The Zeitgeist-defining novelist who tagged his rudderless contemporaries "Generation X "(1991) is now 40 but still feels his characters' pain. Here, plucky 67-year-old matriarch Janet presides over the discombobulated Drummond clan-two freaky sons, one square daughter, numerous dotty spouses, and a mean ex-husband-as it gathers in sweltering midsummer Orlando for the launch of a NASA shuttle carrying Sarah Drummond-Fournier. The much-admired astronaut was a born with one hand, thanks to the thalidomide her mother took during pregnancy, and the ironies roll on as Internet-savvy Janet reveals she is taking the drug again for mouth ulcers caused by AIDS. How did she get the dread disease? A bullet meant for seropositive son Wade (shot by his enraged, drunken father Ted) penetrated her body after passing through Wade's. Meanwhile, as Coupland continues to pile on the action, much of it slapstick, Wade, equally clueless brother Bryan, and dipsomaniac Ted-all in need of some quick cash- descend on Disney World to meet up with one of Wade's lowlife buddies. He enlists them as couriers of a letter stolen from Princess Diana's coffin that they're to deliver to Florian, the Swiss head of Buckingham Pest Control in the Bahamas. Florian also runs one of the world's biggest pharmaceutical firms, and after dinner with Janet, who carries a pillbox "the size of a sewing kit," he cures her by clasping her bleeding hand to that of an immune Ugandan prostitute stolen from the Centers for Disease Control. The author just wants everyone to get along, but his sympathies evidently lie with 42-year-old loser Wade, pregnant women, and Janet. With this "pure and crud-proof" mom at the helm, he suggests, even the ill-starred Drummonds are not without hope. Little evocative description, even less character development: this time out, Coupland settles for improbable adventures inspired by middle-of-the-night channel surfing. (Kirkus Reviews)