After watching all nine web opera-style ads composed of three different narratives, we finally picked up Douglas Coupland’s The Gum Thief.
The narrative style of the book maintained a weird fidelity to the ads — segmented between Roger, his co-worker Bethany, and Roger’s novel-in-progress, Glove Pond.
Every once in awhile, you get another voice — Bethany’s mom, some malicious Staples employees, or Roger’s bitchy ex-wife. Sometimes you get an experimental scenescape involving buttered toast. And for a brief, completely insane moment, you get a story in a story in a story.
One aspect about the book that we found uncomfortably realistic were mentions of YouTube and googling people. That’s when it hit us: all this internet shit we’re involved with daily? This is our lives.
Great book, Coupland. For once, we can say from experience that advertising doesn’t always lead people astray. Sometimes it can guide you right into the lap of something nice.
Like Haagen-Dazs ads. Except literary.
