All Families are Psychotic: A Novel [Paperback]

Douglas Coupland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 2002

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Canadian author Douglas Coupland's seventh novel could be subtitled When Bad Things Happen to Bad People. As the estranged members of the Drummond family straggle into Florida for youngest sister Sarah's impending space shuttle launch, we only begin to glimpse the true meaning of the word dysfunctional. The family, plagued by terminal disease, financial disaster, felonious activity, infidelity, and violence, is forced--by a series of ever more fantastic occurrences--to attempt to deal with each other. That would be an easier task if they didn't loathe one another with a ferocity usually reserved for war criminals. It's not quite Jerry Springer-style tabloid TV set in Disney's Haunted Mansion, but the family members do muster the strength to insult, assault, and infect one another with abandon. With the exception of the family matriarch, Janet, they are unappealing and selfish, but without Machiavellian brilliance. Instead, they're inclined toward out-and-out stupidity, blinded by self-interest rather than enlightened by it. As they bumble through misadventure after misadventure, there seems to be no reason to cheer for them. Even Sarah, the family's shining star, has her dark side.

True to Coupland's style, the book reads lightning fast. The author punctuates his narrative with clipped dialogue and punchy exchanges that advance the palpable sense of unease and tension running throughout. And amidst the acrimony, Coupland throws a genuine caper into the plot, involving Prince William's farewell letter to his mother, Princess Diana. Add to that the oppressive heat and the postmodern, pop culture junkyard of Coupland's Florida setting, and the entire book brews and builds like a roiling tropical storm. --S. Duda --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The Drummond family at the center of Coupland's new novel resembles a month's worth of soap opera plots. Wade Drummond and his mother, Janet, both have AIDS. Janet, 65, was infected when her ex-husband, Ted, shot Wade through the side of his stomach and the bullet lodged in Janet's lung. Ted shot Wade because his son had accidentally had sex with Ted's second wife, Nickie. In consequence, Nickie is also HIV positive. Wade's brother, Bryan, a frequently suicidal musician, has hooked up with the self-named Shw, a young anarchist. Shw has told Bryan she wants to abort her baby, but secretly she is planning to sell it to Lloyd and Gale, a seemingly normal Florida couple with kinky secrets. Now, all the Drummonds are having a family reunion in Orlando. They are gathered to support Sarah, the successful member of the family, as she is about to be shot into space. Although slightly crippled, being a thalidomide baby, Susan has made a career as a scientist and an astronaut. Her bland husband, Howie, is covertly sleeping with Alanna, the wife of Gordon Brunswick, Sarah's mission commander and Sarah is secretly having an affair with Gordon. The item that sets this crew in motion is a letter from Prince William left on Princess Diana's coffin. It has somehow come into possession of a sleazeball named Norm, who wants Wade and Ted to convey it to a billionaire Anglophile based in the Bahamas. Complications, naturally, ensue. Like Chuck Palahniuk, Coupland mines tabloid territory for sensationalism, which he then undermines with ironic self-awareness. The can-you-top-this atmosphere will keep Coupland's Gen-X readers (the ones who religiously watch Cops for the laughs) totally amused. Author tour.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (September 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582342156
• ISBN-13: 978-1582342153
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #646,787 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but disappointing. Could have been more., December 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: All Families are Psychotic (Hardcover)

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.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Much better than the Reviews Say, January 5, 2003

By 

Robert Wellen (CHICAGO, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All Families are Psychotic: A Novel (Paperback)

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.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I miss old-school Coupland ..., September 8, 2001

By 

Jake Mohan (Chicago, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All Families are Psychotic (Hardcover)

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_.