Hey Nostradamus!
By (Author) Douglas Coupland
HarperCollins Publishers
HarperPerennial
4th June 2004
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
813.54
Paperback
336
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 17mm
190g
The story of one family piecing itself back together after a tragic highschool shooting, Hey Nostradamus! is Douglas Coupland's most soulful, piercing and searching novel yet. Pregnant and secretly married, Cheryl Anway scribbles her last will and testament -- and erie premonition -- on a school binder shortly before a rampaging trio of misfit classmates gun her down in a high school cafeteria. Overrun with paranoia, teenage angst and religious zeal in the ensuing massacre's wake, this sleepy Vancouver neighbourhood declares its saints, brands its demons and finally moves on. But for a handful of people still reeling from that horrific day, life remains perpetually derailed. Four dramatically different characters tell their stories in their own words: Cheryl, who calmly narrates her own death; Jason, the boy no one knew was her husband, still marooned ten years later by his loss; Heather, the woman trying to love the shattered Jason; and Jason's father Reg, a cruelly religious man no one suspects is still worth loving. Each wrestles with God, self-defeat and a crippling inability to hold on to those they love.
'Douglas Coupland has surely reserved his place at the top table of North American fiction.' Independent on Sunday'Nothing less than sublime' Time Out'This is far too wise a book to offer answers, but it affirms that seeking them is a necessary part of our humanity.' Independent'Clever, affecting... God it was a pleasure to read.' Ali Smith, author of Hotel World
DOUGLAS COUPLAND first came to prominence as the author of Generation X (1995). He followed that with a sequence of ever-more daring and inventive novels, including Life After God, Girlfriend in a Coma and Hey Nostradamus! He lives in Vancouver.