Customer Reviews

All Families Are Psychotic

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is a good book. I don't think it is possible for Douglas Coupland to write a bad book. Like in all of his novels, the characters are memorable and colorful, the dialogue witty, and clever pop-culture references are everywhere.

That being said, I had better hopes for this one. Books can be classified according to their driving force: what makes them work. Coupland has a habit of writing character-driven novels, such as Microserfs or Generation X. Better than that is the theme-driven novel, where all action says an underlying and coherent thing about life. His only work that comes close to this ideal is Miss Wyoming.

Dissapointing, then, that this book was primarily plot-driven, with the characters along for the ride. It is time for Coupland to write a indisputably great novel, and not just one that works and is fun to read.

The most irritating part of this book is the coincidences. Coupland knows that as the writer he can make anything happen, which is fine, but it happens too often. Imagine if separate characters run off in separate directions and they don't have any idea where the others are, or even what city, but then they enter a random restaurant on a whim, and hey! There's the rest of the family. Normally forgivable, if it's necessary to the plot. But this kind of coincidence happens over and over, making it feel as if the story was strung together, with no crafting or deliberation. At that point, suspension of disbelief becomes difficult.

The first few chapters are fantastic, and full of life. I was disappointed that by the end it didn't live up to the full, developed style that this author is so capable of.

Is Coupland a perfect writer? No. Is this book perfect? No. Is it a terrific read? Yes. Coupland has a unique voice and he again says alot here. This book is almost as good as my Miss Wyoming. It is not even close to his worst effort, Shampoo Planet. The story here is fantastical like the story in "Girlfriend in a coma," but it works. With DC you always need to suspend disbelief. Enjoy his satire and fall in love with his characters. There are some universal truths about families in here. It is an incredibly fast read. It is not the most profound you will find, but like space, infinitely enjoyable. I won't soon forget it.
The next time I see a star fall, I will think of Janet and her quiet awakening.

I feel that, since 1998's _Girlfriend In A Coma_, Douglas Coupland's books have become, well, less satisfying. They are still packed with trademark Couplandisms: coy observations of Western traditions and foibles, pop-culture ephemera as metaphysical benchmark, wildly improbable escapades by zany protagonists who are deeply flawed but still pure of heart. But somewhere along the way, his stories lost the carefully-developed, mature tone of _Microserfs_ and _Life After God_ and became too quick, too clever, too cute.

The characters in _All Families Are Psychotic_ - from the wise matriarch to the alcoholic father to the waiters and waitresses in restaurants - all speak in the same witty, articulate banter of Cultural Studies majors. Reality in dialogue has always been a weakness of Coupland's, but here the too-clean exchanges between characters grate on my nerves. Coupland's main priority has always been to share interesting and pointed observations he's made about North American culture, and his characters serve as mouthpieces for his message. But I buckled under the disbelief I was suspending when the aforementioned matriarch remarks to her dinner date, "Salad bars are like a restaurant's lungs ... they soak up the impurities and the bacteria in the environment, leaving us with much cleaner air to enjoy." And there's more where that came from. Such remarks are not in themselves repellent, and perhaps that's why I prefer Coupland's nonfiction (_Polaroids From The Dead_) and his short stories (_Life After God_) - in these, he doesn't try to accomplish so much at once, and appears more at ease with his craft.

All Families Are Psychotic does surpass its disappointing predecessor, Miss Wyoming (2000), which read like a creative-writing student doing an impression of Coupland. Families does approach such well-trodden millenial obsessions as AIDs, Princess Diana, and religion from new angles, and there are moments when the cleverness is pure, and well-timed, and results in a chuckle or an aha. There are even some touching moments when Coupland allows his characters to speak emotionally with each other. Perhaps I'm just too much of an old-school Coupland fan: I yearn for the early days of _Generation X_ and _Shampoo Planet_ and _Microserfs_.

Tolstoy once wrote "All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." With Douglas Coupland, the sentiment seems to be that "All Families Are Psychotic." A wildly bizarre look at a soap opera family gone crazy, unfortunately this book is rather humorless by Coupland's standards.

The dysfunctional Drummond family is gathering together, as daughter Susan is about to be sent up into space. As they do, they reflect on their tangled, messy past -- including the fact that son Wade slept with his stepmother Nickie, then got shot by his father Ted, striking his mother Janet. Now Janet and Wade have AIDS, and Nickie is HIV positive.

To make things worse, downbeat brother Bryan shows up with his anarchist girlfriend Shw, who is pregnant. She claims she's going to abort, but has secretly arranged to sell her child to a seemingly ordinary couple. And Ted has prostate cancer. In the few days before Susan's launch, the bizarre extended family wrangles out some of their old arguments, and learns a few new things about themselves.

Every author stumbles, and consider "All Families Are Psychotic" as Douglas Coupland stubbing his toe. It's not exactly a bad book, but it lacks the complexity and wry wit that most of his books have. He tends to do modern sociology well, while this mainly seems like a soap opera gone completely mad.

Coupland populates this world of his with insane hippies, amorous astronauts and suicidal musicians. So you can guess that there's plenty of trouble. The scenarios are mostly pretty funny, such as the mad chase for a letter to Princess Di, although they get a bit over-the-top sometimes. However, Coupland slows the pace for some insightful looks at America, family and the shattering aftereffects of divorce.

The characters lack dimension -- specifically, they lack the "likability" dimension. Only the jilted Janet is likable, as she steps out of the "dutiful housewife" mold and becomes her own person. The others are almost good characters, but Coupland never gives us a reason to really like any of them -- even the thalidomide-deformed (and married) Susan is having a fling with her (also married) mission commander.

While it's grim a lot of the time, "All Families Are Psychotic" has sprawling flashes of wit and peculiar humor. An interesting read, but not one of Coupland's better novels.

It's sad really. I mean, you use to be able to read Coupland and get to the thoughtful heart of things pretty quick. The irony and sarcasm were always there, but they didn't overpower, totally overwhelm the story. But now, with a book like this, I really feel like I'm being satirized to death, and if there's a soul hidden away somewhere in this new writing style of his, well, I can't for the life of me find it. CONCLUSION: incredibly crafty but largely unsatisfying stuff, sort of like the literary equivalent of junk food, except it costs 30 bucks a pop. I remember reading an article about Douglas years ago, just after he published generation X. Apparently, at the time, he was planning to write a book on the potatoe famine. That all-important lost novel now more than ever before, I think, must to be written.

I think, perhaps, the reason I enjoyed this book so thoroughly is because my family is, in fact, psychotic. I read this book immediately after reading Hey Nostradmus! because I was instantly infautated with Coupland's writing style. I thought this book was equally as good as my prior read. It was hilarious and fantastical. I'm not one for fantasy or science fiction, and I certainly didn't expect any of that from this book, but this only being my second Coupland novel, I wasn't really familiar with the tidbits of fantasy. But, I loved it. 100%, two thumbs up, 5 stars, etc etc etc. Makes you family not seem so crazy.

i'm never quite certain how to respond to Coupland's work. mostly, he makes no great demands of his prose, though when he's of a mind to put the effort in, he has a poet's eye for metaphor and can write descriptions of great emotional potency. he's an excellent realist - a relaxed writer of dialogue, an astute narrator of character, and a forceful critic of modern life. and there's plenty of evidence of all these skills in this novel. but Coupland is not a realist writer, and this, for me, is his failing.

having introduced us to a modern American family in a very careful and perceptive manner, about a third of the way through the novel, he ditches this presentation for a roller-coaster ride into wish-fulfilment territory. the engine of the story certainly kicks into life with great force - i whisked through this book. but i felt something was lost in the process. in real life, there are no miracles to console us, or guide our footsteps towards a more enlightened mode of living. i would have preferred it, and this is how i feel about all the Coupland books i've read, if we hadn't taken this silly detour, if we'd stayed in the real world that we were so beautifully introduced to at the beginning of the novel: the weight of life the reader feels when he learns that practically everyone in the family has AIDS; the struggling and the indifference of the characters towards their lives; the break-ups and curious, loveless matches; the lack of care the characters have for each other, and the care they show at unexpected moments. all this felt true to me. in my view, the writer should have held to this hard course rather than taking us off into his Disney Land of would-be torturers, kitsch billionaires and miracle cures.

less of the soap-opera plot lines then, please; let the characters and real life speak for themselves and find their own way through to the end of the story.

I picked up this book hoping to fall asleep reading. Instead I was drawn in by page 3 and stayed up until I'd read most of it. The main character, in my opinion, is Janet, the mother. I think it's more or less in her voice, and that is why she is the most developed character.
The book was very funny in an "Oh no!" kind of way. Sure, there are some outrageous stories and some things may seem unlikely to some people. They are lucky, I guess. I, for one, can really relate to the dysfunctional family and to a lot of the characters.
But it isn't meant to be a character study or some huge philosophy assignment. It's meant to entertain you while you pass some time reading, and it does that just fine.

This is one of the funnier D.C. novels. I love it because it is so very interesting and not at all boring. It is full of twists and turns and madcap capers. It's deep. And it's about love and redemption. As with all D.C. books you REALLY have to keep an open mind while you are reading it and appreciate it for it's quirkiness.

To the uninitiated-and even to some Coupland fans-All Families Are Psychotic will be one bizarre little novel. The book is in the same vein as some of Coupland's previous works (see Shampoo Planet, Girlfriend in a Coma, and Miss Wyoming), but the psychotic people and chaotic coincidences have been turned up to 11. However-even though All Families is considerably darker than these previous novels (the narrative is Pulp Fiction meets Peyton Place), Coupland's trademark optimism and core faith in human nature shines through. Along the way he addresses some of the usual Couplandesque themes with the same acuity and perceptiveness he demonstrates in all his work-relationships and family (dysfunctional, of course; note the title), the interaction of one's sense of self with various pharmaceuticals, and nodal points in North American post-war culture, to name some of the big ones.

Even better, All Families Are Psychotic features some of Coupland's most vivid characters-virtually everyone is well-developed (which couldn't be said, in my opinion, for Miss Wyoming). Particularly notable are the stunningly level-headed materfamilias Janet and the riddle wrapped up inside an enigma that is Florian. Sixty-something Janet is so remarkably patient and grounded that despite suffering constant trials and tortures, both petty and not-so, involving (as the jacket copy indicates) "kidnapping, blackmail, gunplay, and black market negotiations," she doesn't utter the words "I'm scared" until page 266 of 279. And Florian is . . . Florian. What can one say? He is a singular individual and one of the funniest characters I've ever met.

In this book, Coupland again employs the time-shifting narrative structure he used to develop the plot of Miss Wyoming-introducing his characters as they blunder through their present-day chaos, then slowly filling in their backstories so that the reader can savor it. He's not a pioneer in this respect, but he's one of the best.

If you're a long-time Coupland fan, this book is definitely a candidate for his best work (assuming you are not put off by the farcical elements of the plot and Coupland's usual tidy little happy ending). I can't wait for a few months' distance from the book so I can read it again. If you're new to Coupland, All Families Are Psychotic is a reasonable place to start, but be sure not to miss his other works as well. Coupland is a consistently good writer, and each of his books is the favorite of many of his die-hard fans.