The Gum Thief
by Douglas Coupland

For the A-Z reading challenge.

English
277 pages
Bloomsbury
ISBN: 978-0-7475-9188-7

First line: A few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age—regardless of how they look on the outside—pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives.

Back cover blurb:
Meet Roger, a divorced, middle-aged ‘aisles associate’ at a Staples outlet, condemned to restocking reams of paper for the rest of his life, and his co-worker Bethany, who’s at the end of her Goth phase and realising she’s facing fifty more years of shelving Post-it notes and replenishing the Crayola boutique in Aisle Six.

One day, Bethany discovers Roger’s notebook in the staffroom. When she opens it up, she discovers that this old guy who she’s never considered to be quite human is writing mock diary entries pretending to be her — and weirdly, he’s getting it right. She learns he has a tragedy in his past, and suddenly he no longer seems like a paper-stocking robot in a red shirt and name tag.

These two retail workers then strike up an unlikely yet touching secret correspondence. As their lives unfold, so too do the characters of Roger’s work-in-progress, the oddly titled Glove Pond, a Cheever-era novella gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Thoughts: A friend lent me this book a couple of weeks back, and since I’m likely meeting her again this weekend and she’ll be wanting her book back then, I decided to make this my next read. A choice I can’t say I regret.

Mind you, it’s not my favourite Coupland by far, but it’s still good. Good enough to earn itself a pretty little B rating. It’s one of his more tragicomic works and, like the rest of his books, full of truly bizarre characters.

Speaking of Coupland, has anyone watched jPod, the TV show based on the book with the same name? I only heard about it the other day and I’m curious as to what it’s like, but don’t feel that I have enough time to spare at present to check it out myself.