Bethany, the world is a beautiful place. Life is short, and yet it’s long. Being here is such a gift.
Excerpt from The Gum Thief
The synopsis is not something I can easily go through and so I shall keep it short. Roger is a pathetic excuse for a man who is in his 40′s and working at Staples. Bethany is a girl who’s a bit too old to be a Goth with no real direction in life. She too works at Staples. They connect through their writing each other notes. Nothing romantic in them, but a connection is forged. And that is the simple yet stunning basis of the book. From there it is a whirlwind of real-life and the human thought process. To add to it there is a story within the book called Glove Pond which I honestly wish was a book on its own, as well as the deeply moving stories of different slices of bread and toast.
I’m aware that I’m a fanboy of Douglas Coupland. Anyone that looks at my cluttered bookshelf will note that fairly quickly. I can say that I enjoy his writing style and that generally it isn’t for everyone. You need to appreciate the subtle (and some times not so subtle) outrageousness his books tend to sport.On that note, The Gum Thief may be his most toned-down novel ever. This is in no way a bad thing, and I find it unsettling how realistic the characters feel. They truly feel like people you would utterly ignore walking down the street while you think other thoughts. That’s exactly what he was going for, I think. He wanted to give depth to the two-dimensional characters we see walking down the street, the ones that work in Staples, those who move through life in obscurity.
It’s a story about nothing and everything all at once. It’s a snapshot of the every day life of two people. Not two super humans or eccentric crazy-folk. Just regular people. It hooked me late in the book, but when I finished it I wished that there had been hundreds of pages more. It’s heart-warming in the tenderness that the characters portray towards each other. It’s crushing in watching their lives go through dark patches and slide to the brink of nothingness. It’s triumphant in leaving you laughing on one page and deeply moved the next.
If you can read Douglas Copeland’s work (there are those who can’t stand him, and that’s understandible), you must read this. If you’re an actual fan of his, this may be the best thing I’ve ever read by him to date.
Depressing and beautiful. As captivating as watching the sun go out.
9.5/10
Leave a Reply