Eleanor Rigby

Douglas Coupland

Fourth Estate, 2004 - Fiction - 249 pages

Hot on the heels of the hugely acclaimed bestseller Hey Nostradamus comes a major new novel from Douglas Coupland: the wonderfully warm, funny, life-affirming story of Liz Dunn, a woman who has spent her whole life alone and lonely -- until now...'My name is Liz Dunn. The Liz Dunns of this world take classes in croissant baking, and would rather chew on soccer balls than deny their children muesli. They own one sex toy, plus one cowboy fantasy that accompanies its use... Look at me: I am a traitor to my name: I'm not cheerful; I'm drab. I'm crabby and friendless. And lonely.'Liz Dunn is 42 years old, and lonely. Her house is like 'a spinster's cell block', and she may or may not snore -- there's never been anybody to tell her. Then one day in 1997, with the comet Hale Bopp burning bright in the blue-black sky, Liz receives an urgent phone call asking her to visit a young man in hospital. All at once, the loneliness that has come to define her is ripped away by this funny, smart, handsome young stranger, Jeremy. Her son.Eleanor Rigby is a tale of loneliness and hope that introduces Douglas Coupland's finest character yet. Illuminated by a wonderfully gentle, searching wisdom, it se

Contents

• Section 1: 1
• Section 2: 83
• Section 3: 118

About the author

Douglas Coupland was born December 30, 1961 on a Canadian military base in Baden-Soellingen, Germany. He graduated from Sentinel Secondary School in West Vancouver in 1979 and went on to McGill University. He was unhappy there and went on to Emily Carr College of Art and Design. He has said that these were the best four years of his life. He graduated in 1984 with a focus on sculpture and moved on to study at the European Design Institute in Milan. He also completed a two-year course in Japanese business science in Hawaii in 1986.He soon began writing for magazines as a means of paying the bills. He soon started work on his first novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture which was published in 1991. His second novel Shampoo Planet focused on the generation after Generation X and was published in 1992. This generation was termed "Global Teens". His career has consisted of writing, sculpting, and editing and he also hosted The Search for Generation X, a PBS documentary, 1991. Douglas Coupland has also worked on a magazine called Wired. He wrote a short story about the life of the employees of Mocrosoft Corporation. This short story provided inspiration for his novel Microserfs.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Eleanor Rigby
• Author: Douglas Coupland
• Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2004
• ISBN: 0007162537, 9780007162536
• Length: 249 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Psychological