Loneliness interrupted: New mysteries in her ordinary life

Despite having written numerous novels and several works of nonfiction, Douglas Coupland is most famous for his 1991 debut novel, “Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture.” With chapters such as “Our Parents Had More” and “I Am Not a Target Market,” and its brilliant non-sequitur sidebars, Coupland defined and influenced an entire generation of cynical, underemployed twentysomethings.

As its Beatles-inspired title suggests, Coupland’s marvelous ninth novel, “Eleanor Rigby,” explores loneliness -- a familiar theme -- with his usual blend of offbeat humor and delightful strangeness. Irony isn’t quite dead here, but it plays a more muted role, allowing for surprising poignancy.

“Eleanor Rigby” follows the dismal life of protagonist Liz Dunn, a 36-year-old Vancouver resident who feels “too lonely to live, and too frightened to die.” The novel is written in the form of a personal journal, and Liz introduces herself with plain-spoken sadness: “I’ve never been married, I’m right-handed and my hair is deep red and willfully curly. I may or may not snore -- there’s never been anybody to tell me one way or the other.” Her professional life is dreary too. Liz spends her days bogged down in paperwork at a company she calls “the cubicle farm,” working for a man she refers to as “The Dwarf to Whom I Report.”

Though Liz Dunn is hardly the sort of character we aspire to become, she is smart, charming and instantly likable. She is a mess, to be sure, but one with whom we empathize. “I fill my days fighting a constant battle to keep my dignity,” she says. Even so, it’s clear that Liz isn’t the loser she believes herself to be.

Hers is reminiscent of the stark, profound loneliness Toni Morrison described in her 1987 masterpiece “Beloved”: “a loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive, on its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one’s own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.”

One night, however, after witnessing a passing comet, Liz’s drab routine undergoes a radical change. A young man named Jeremy suddenly appears and turns out to be her 20-year-old son. (His birth was the result of a one-night stand on a high school trip to Rome; she gave the baby up for adoption.)

Coupland is far too clever to turn this mother-son reunion into something mawkish, even as Jeremy and Liz both admit they have been pondering what to say to one another for the past two decades.

“Neither of us is going to give the speech, right?” says Liz. “It’d be kind of corny,” Jeremy agrees, and that’s that. So what is their first conversation about? Stolen cheese. Throughout the novel, Coupland displays his gift for writing dialogue that seems as authentic as it is absurd.

As Liz’s relationship with Jeremy unfolds, she contemplates death, the passage of time and her own dysfunctional family history. This wouldn’t be a Coupland novel if it didn’t explore the vast, weird mysteries found even in the most ordinary lives -- and the author does well by honoring Liz’s sufferings and ruminations rather than treating them with sarcasm or condescension. He avoids being over-earnest through self-conscious wit and odd plot twists -- as when Liz inadvertently shuts down the world’s seventh busiest airport.

This book is funny and strange, but it’s also moving and bittersweet.

Jeremy is a mystical, tragic figure suffering from bleak visions and multiple sclerosis; Liz must learn to love and be loved when she decides to seek out Jeremy’s “stupidly handsome” father, Klaus, and to make peace with her former self.

The story’s ending proves unexpected yet exactly what you’d hoped: “Even the most random threads of life always knit together in the end,” Coupland writes, and indeed they do. “Eleanor Rigby” is the most impressive novel he has written in years. It might prove to be among the best fiction of this new year as well.

Carmela Ciuraru is a regular contributor to Book Review.