2003 notebook: - getting a bit silly, set piece after set piece, the car crash, the hold up, the trusted father, thalidomide, AIDS

a surprisingly smooth comic read after the disappointment brought about by 'generation X'!

Was this something he wrote when he was 17, took out from under the bed and handed to his publisher without so much as an edit? Was he high? AWWWFUL, and hardly worthy of the same author as The Gum Thief. Too many quirky characters with too many ailments to seem vraisemblable-- it just doesn't ring true. Very poorly written, a waste of time, DON'T BOTHER!

Great little read. I finished in a weekend, because there was a humorous, unforeseeable detail around every corner. While some dialogue seemed forced or hokey every now and then, and some of the flashbacks were overwrought, the main story moved at a brisk pace and was highly original. The ending was a slight disappointment, but an overall great work of modern fiction. It has reclaimed the surname Drummond from "Diff'rent Strokes," at least for me.

I can't get past my love-hate relationship with Douglas Coupland. I haven't read a novel of his that I haven't enjoyed yet the idea of starting a new one fills me with some kind of nameless dread. It's as if I think it's going to be a difficult read (which they never are) or dull (I'm not sure Coupland does dull.) I blame the titles, or the idea of the as yet unread by me Girlfriend in a Coma which I bought approximately ten years ago and still haven't read. One of those things is consistently depriving me of the pleasure of a Douglas Coupland novel.

I really did love this one; a realistic portrait of a dysfunctional family coupled with a farcical plot, in Florida of all places, that is both heart-warming and absurd, extremely funny and thought provoking and made me think of the master of underworld dialogue in a bizarre setting Mr Elmore Leonard.

I couldn't stop reading, the light hearted tone and the slightly surreal turn of events had me flipping pages all day keen to know how Coupland would tie everything together and what would become of this band of merry men as they fight their way through the plot (and Florida.)

He didn't disappoint, the serious undertones and occasional tazering to the head with his human insight don't come across as overtly preachy (definite plus points) and he doesn't deliberately aim to jerk tears either but you still come away feeling lighter yet having thought about life, the universe and everything. In this way he really does capture the common neuroses and foibles in contemporary life (and in this case the interactions in a 21st century family.)

Psychotic they might be but I wish my family were as nice to each other as the Drummonds.

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. Douglas Coupland was born on a Canadian Armed Forces Base in Baden-Söllingen, Germany, in 1961. He is the author of the novels Miss Wyoming, Generation X, and Girlfriend in a Coma, among others, as well as the nonfiction works Life After God and Polaroids from the Dead. He grew up and lives in Vancouver, Canada. All Families are Psychotic is the story of the most disastrous family reunion in the history of fiction. The Drummond family descends upon the state of Florida, cutting a swath through Disney World, the swamps, the highways, and Cape Canaveral, gathering to watch the launch into space of their beloved daughter and sister, Sarah. What should be a cause for celebration becomes instead the impetus for a series of mishaps and coincidences that place them in constant peril. In a family where gunplay, black market negotiations and kidnapping are all part of an afternoon in the sun, you can only imagine what happens when things take a turn for the worse. As the family spins dangerously out of control, the story unfolds at a lightning-fast pace. With one plot twist after the other, the Drummonds fall apart and come together in the most unexpected ways. "A powerful, redemptive story . . . A book about adults, written by a 40-year-old who has moved beyond any youthful alienation to an appreciation of the complicated nature of what binds people together."—The Miami Herald "[Coupland's] best novel to date."—LA Weekly"A powerful, redemptive story . . . A book about adults, written by a 40-year-old who has moved beyond any youthful alienation to an appreciation of the complicated nature of what binds people together."—The Miami Herald"Coupland has taken a great leap forward, using his ultramodern sensibility to tackle issues—parents, children, love, and death—as old as literature . . . This novel is without a doubt timely, but it's also the author's most potentially enduring work, one that should resonate with generations well beyond X."—The Ruminator Review"A fabulous modern-day yarn with your name all over it . . . a novel of unsurpassable humor told at a breakneck pace . . . a story of surprising depth."—The Providence Journal"Coupland is a beacon of hope—and an ultimately cathartic read—because he argues persuasively that opportunity is found in places that we only learn to consider after we find them the hard way."—The Kansas City Star"Everyone with a strange family—that is, everyone with a family—will laugh knowingly at the feuding, conducted with a maestro's ear for dialogue and a deep understanding of humanity. Coupland, once the wiseguy of Generation X, has become a wise man."—People"Witty and eloquent . . . a roller-coaster ride with humorous twists and violent turns, exhilarating highs and ominous lows. Mr. Coupland raises the bar for everyone, reader and writer alike."—The Washington Times"The launching of the space shuttle prompts a family reunion as the Drummond family gathers in Florida to witness one of their own, Sarah, take off on a mission into outer space. Family reunions, typically, are opportunities for relations to take stock of themselves, patch up differences, and/or maintain feuds. So it is with the Drummonds, who, despite their eccentricities, just may be the quintessential, twenty-first-century, middle-class family—only more so. There's the matriarch, Janet, serene at 65 and dying of AIDS; ex-hubby Ted, a philanderer, who shows up with his trophy wife, Nicky; eldest son Wade, also with AIDS, along with his pregnant wife, Beth, whom he met when she thought she had AIDS; brother Bryan, the family depressive, who, after several suicide attempts, now has a reason to live; and Bryan's girlfriend, with the unlikely name Shw, whom he met while setting fire to a Gap at an antiglobalization protest and who is carrying his baby, which, unbeknownst to him, she plans to sell. And then there's Sarah, the family overachiever, who is missing a hand because mother Janet used thalidomide for morning sickness and whose husband, Howie, is cheating on her with the wife of one of her fellow astronauts. Although the Drummonds appear to be self-destructing, author Coupland reveals himself to be, somewhat surprisingly, an optimist. For him, the new millennium is an era full of promise and potential miracles, despite the seemingly terminal state of the world."—Benjamin Segedin, Booklist

Rich in oddball characters and a lot of heart, All Families Are Psychotic is a cracked-out look at the state of the American Family as viewed through the lens of the Drummond family who are gathering together in Florida to watch family hero Sarah blast into space (note: Sarah is a thalidomide baby).

To give you a glimpse of the dysfunctional heights this family aspires to, son Wade slept with his stepmom Nickie who was then shot by his father Ted striking his mother, Janet. Now Janet and Wade have AIDS and Nickie is HIV positive. And Ted has prostate cancer. Add to the mix black sheep son Brian and his partner, anarcho-feminist Shw, who has just learned that she is pregnant and is planning on selling the baby for cash.

Satire in the vein of Vonnegut, All Families Are Psychotic is a swift read, written in that clipped page-turning style that Coupland is well known for and offers an interesting look at what ties families together through the good and the bad and shows that no matter how far wrong you may go, family will still accept you.

Psicóticos no se, pero chalados están todos bastante. Madre mía qué pandilla.
El principio no me atrajo mucho, me despisté en algún momento y no conseguía entender en qué época estábamos, como si en algún instante hubiera habido un flash-back y no me hubiera enterado. Pero si sigues te encuentras con esta historia de familia donde la única "normal" es Sarah, que está a punto de zarpar en un cohete de la NASA rumbo al espacio. El resto, padres, hermanos, cuñados y cuñadas están todos de encerrar, lo que les lleva a situaciones completamente absurdas pero verosímiles, entre hormigas voladoras, pantanos, tiroteos, venta de bebés y medicamentos. En resumen, una novela para pasar un rato divertido, sin duda.

I picked up this book because the title made me chuckle. I am definitely someone who believes that all families are, in fact, psychotic in their own way. It was a quick but fantastic read - quick, I believe, because it was such fun to read. However unlikely the story line may be - it does evolve to include some incredibly odd turns of events - the book started and remained witty and personal and deeply human.

The book centers around a family who all come together to Florida to celebrate an achievement of the only daughter in the family; the "perfect" one of the bunch. She appears to have it all and she interacts with her family in a loving, matter-of-fact way. She is especially close to her older brother, Wade, who has always seemed to find trouble wherever he went. Bryan, the youngest brother, is fraught with insecurities and depression and passively accepts his father's put downs. He is joined by his temperamental, pregnant and oddly named girlfriend who treats him with the respect one would give to a fresh pile of dog feces on a person's new shoe. The father is a narcissistic jerk and his new trophy wife strangely likable and genuine. The most likable character is Janet, the mother, who has suffered the most from the family's shenanigans and has her own set of major problems which I won't get into here. The family is tied together not just by blood and DNA but by an unexpected and tragic turn of events that they are forced to accept and live with forever.

The story twists and turns and, though tinged with tragic life issues, is witty and often absolutely hilarious. Coupland is masterful, having created deeply flawed characters who are, despite their individual shortcomings, deep hearted and incredibly likable. The story makes me think of my own family and has, in a way, softened my view of the sharper edges each of my relatives has. It's a silly and far-fetched plot in the book, but in a large way extremely relatable. We all have flaws in ourselves and our respective families, but, as Coupland shows, the complexities of our lives and how we fit into others' is what makes life so frustratingly wonderful.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who can find truth and humor in the title and that can appreciate that the sentiment isn't necessarily bad and can, in truth, make a family that much stronger.

Perhaps a bit too fragmented
I like Douglas Coupland a lot: his quirky stories show great sympathy for unpromising characters, and he often finds optimism and redemption in the most unlikely places. I particularly enjoyed the way he tried to make sense of tragedy in Hey Nostradamus! , the magic realism of Girlfriend in a Coma and, of course, the pinpoint accuracy of Microserfs . That eye for detail - and the way he conjures up original and apt metaphors - is one of his defining characteristics, I think. So my heart sank when I read in the flashback on p32 of this book that Janet had been shot in the right lung, because on p1 - indeed, in the very first paragraph - she was fingering the bullet scar over her left ribcage. It's just a small point, but it made me wonder whether he was pulling these characters together in a bit of a hurry. Certainly - as others have pointed out - there's a contrived feeling to some of their back-stories; this wouldn't be so noticable though if there was more of a plot to this story. Unfortunately, all they seem to do is drive from one motel to another, in various configurations (at one point, I found I'd forgotten where each of the characters was supposed to be, which is a good sign of incipient lack of interest).

There are still some nice Coupland touches here, such as the description of Daytona Beach as being the town for all "those people who run to the ticket booth first on the morning after a lottery" (p176), and Janet's realization after too much driving through Florida that "this landscape is from an amusement park. I'm on a ride - a ride shaped like an orange VW camper" (p171). But overall, I think the pieces don't really come together to make one of his best works.

Originally reviewed 2 November 2007

This book is a solid 4.5. It falls into my favourite sub-genre of Douglas Coupland books; it’s like a mashup of Microserfs, Shampoo Planet, The Gum Thief and Eleanor Rigby. Maybe it's my *new* Microserfs—the casual, funny, mundane, bittersweet book I reread once a year because, in some mysterious way unique to Coupland, it has totally rattled me to my core. And the ending! I genuinely felt happy for Janet and Wade. Saving the one sane family member's POV—the Drummond who is set apart by her success, intelligence, and inability to understand her psychotic kin—for the last chapter was something I didn't know I needed until I read it. I've never read a book that was so chock-full of characters that feel like real people. Definitely a super obscure, niche read, but I adore this book.

This book was a romp. :) Wacky, but still intelligent, and with its genuine moments too. Huge variety of characters who were all well developed with awesome dialogue. Definitely going to read more Coupland.