Liz Dunn isn't morbid, she's just a lonely woman with a very pragmatic outlook on life. Overweight, underemployed, and living in a nondescript condo with nothing but chocolate pudding in the fridge, she has pretty much given up on anything interesting ever happening to her. Everything changes when she gets an unexpected phone call from a Vancouver hospital and a stranger takes on a very intimate place in her life. From here the plot of Douglas Coupland's Eleanor Rigby skyrockets into a very bizarre world, rife with reverse sing-alongs and apocalyptic visions of frantic farmers. The style and plot paths are very identifiably Coupland--slightly mystical, off-kilter, and very, very smart. Ultimately a novel about the burden of loneliness, Eleanor Rigby takes its characters through strange and sometimes nearly unimaginable predicaments.

Fans of Douglas Coupland's later novels, particularly Hey Nostradamus! and Miss Wyoming, are bound to like Eleanor Rigby. Like many of his novels, the journey is strange and unexpected but you come out at the other end with a snapshot of a sardonic and bizarre but ever-so-slightly hopeful place. --Victoria Griffith


From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
If you were asked to imagine a lonely person, you might picture a character very similar to Liz Dunn, the protagonist of Douglas Coupland's latest novel, Eleanor Rigby. Liz has a boring job, a depressing, featureless condo and no friends. She's overweight, inexperienced with men, pessimistic about the future and spends her days like someone in an airport terminal waiting for a flight to depart, finding ways to make the minutes pass more quickly. And what would you do with such a sad lump of a character? Naturally you'd want to introduce someone exciting and unpredictable into her life, someone to shake things up with his quirky ways and odd ideas and irrepressible joy at being alive. But Jeremy, Liz's long-lost son, isn't just zany and devil-may-care, he's smart and incredibly handsome and unreasonably charming, yet very patient and kind, and, best of all, he's terminally ill! What better way for Liz, fat and depressed and lonely, to reconnect with her will to live than by unearthing her primal mothering instincts for an utterly perfect child with a death sentence?Veering so close to the territory of lighthearted yet poignant romantic comedies and quirky, feel-good movies could make any author nervous. No one wants his novel to bear a striking resemblance to the next whimsical vehicle featuring those kinder, gentler parts Jack Nicholson has been playing lately.Yet in movies like "As Good as It Gets" and "About Schmidt" and "Something's Gotta Give," the Nicholson character has substantial flaws, which we learn through observing him in his natural habitat: He's obsessive-compulsive. He kicks little dogs. He's jealous of his daughter's fiancé. Coupland's lead characters, on the other hand, are quirky and sharp and self-aware, and we learn about their flaws only when they tell us about them directly -- but we still don't believe them."I'm drab, crabby and friendless," Liz informs us early on. But aren't drab, crabby, friendless people the last ones to admit that they're any of the above? No matter, since we never witness Liz behaving in an outwardly crabby way, not even when one of her compassionless siblings drops by unannounced."I used to be street trash," Jeremy tells Liz upon meeting her for the first time, but nothing about him is remotely trashy. Even when he recounts his awful childhood, which he spent being passed around among foster homes, he manages to sidestep any raw expressions of rage at being given up by his mother. Even when he discusses his struggles with multiple sclerosis, he remains tough and patient and condemns those who believe that the disease should allow them to behave like victims. Even when his girlfriend flies into a rage and throws his boom box out the window, he politely requests that she calm down. In fact, Jeremy spends most of the novel delighting and entertaining everyone he meets, then cooking them a tasty meal. If this sort of behavior is a product of the foster system, we should all be so lucky as to be abandoned by our parents.As readable and entertaining as Coupland's writing has been since his widely read first novel, Generation X, was published in 1991, there's no conflict here, and nothing moves the story forward because it's not clear what any of the characters really needs. Liz and her son are not only exactly alike, they're utterly in step with each other and agree on the proper course of action at every turn. Coupland offers his usual insights about existential angst and life being what you make it, but somehow the satisfaction of seeing two characters clash, only to recognize that they complement each other, is missing: These two merely match. Without any little rough spots and moments where they bring out the worst in each other, there's really nothing interesting or touching about their mutual affection.The most dramatic moments -- Jeremy falls and hits his head, signaling his impending decline; Liz is accosted by secret agents at the airport -- are recounted after the fact, from a great distance. Again, imagine a Nicholson character, without the flaws, telling the camera that he eventually became a happier guy, but we miss the scene where he hugs the dog or accepts his daughter's fiancé or falls in love with Diane Keaton. Even the Eleanor Rigby of the Beatles' song shows us her desires through her actions: She picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been; she keeps her face in a jar by the door. Not only doesn't Liz Dunn offer any insights about where "all the lonely people" come from or belong, she has no real hopes or dreams to speak of, no secret self that she cherishes, no false self that she presents to the world. Ultimately, we don't know any more about her than she knows about herself. We don't make any discoveries or learn anything new or feel a sense of satisfaction over what she's been through. In the end, it's as if we've spent a few pleasant enough hours in the terminal with her, biding our time until our flight departs. Reviewed by Heather Havrilesky Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.


From Bookmarks Magazine
Author of 1991’s seminal Generation X, Canadian author Coupland has a lot to live up to. Eleanor Rigby’s detractors claim that Coupland has lost his touch, and they dismiss his heroine as derivative and unrealistic. Others feel the author is in top form and praise him for making the dull Liz shine. Coupland’s dialogue raises another point of debate; one critic derided him for his stilted phrases, while another found the same phrases wonderfully engaging. Eleanor Rigby is unlikely to find as large a following as Generation X did, but it may prove enjoyable for those who can put up with Liz’s crankiness.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.


Review
This tale.is told with abundant wit and a deceptive simplicity."


Book Description
A riveting, witty, and profound story of loneliness and connection from internationally bestselling author Douglas Coupland.

The 1997 night that Hale-Bopp streaks across the skies over Vancouver, Liz Dunn has nothing in her life but impending oral surgery and an armful of schmaltzy video rentals to get her through her solitary convalescence in her sterile condo. She's overweight, crabby, and plain, but behind her eyes lurk whole universes that she's never had the opportunity to express. Just as Liz makes a quiet decision to seek peace in her life rather than certainty, along comes another comet, in the form of a young man admitted to the local hospital with her name and number inscribed on his Medic Alert bracelet: In case of emergency, contact Liz Dunn.

A charming lost soul and a strange visionary, Jeremy upends Liz's quiet existence, triggering a chain of events that take her to the other side of the world and back, endangering her life just as a real chance at happiness finally seems within reach. By turns funny and heartbreaking, Eleanor Rigby is a fast-paced read and a haunting exploration of the ways in which loneliness affects us all.



About the Author
Douglas Coupland was born on a Canadian Armed Forces Base in Baden-Sollingen, Germany, in 1961. He is the author of the novels Hey Nostradamus!, All Families Are Psychotic, Miss Wyoming, Girlfriend in a Coma, and Generation X, among others, as well as the nonfiction works City of Glass and Polaroids from the Dead. He grew up and lives in Vancouver, Canada.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"On a summer night in 1997, a comet streaks across the skies. Liz Dunn has nothing in her life but impending oral surgery and an armful of video rentals to get her through her solitary convalscence in her condo. She's overweight, crabby, and plain, but behind her dull exterior lurks a mind sharpened by years of observation and contemplation. Liz decides to seek peace in her life rather than certainty - and then along comes another comet, in the form of a young man admitted to the local hospital with her name and number inscribed on his medical alert bracelet: In case of emergency, contact Liz Dunn." A charming lost soul and a strange visionary, Jeremy upends Liz's quiet existence, triggering a chain of events that take her to the other side of the world and back, endangering her life just as a real chance at happiness finally seems within reach.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Liz Dunn is fat, lonely and has no friends. That sounds harsh, but Coupland faces unpleasant facts head on in this poignant, funny, intrepidly offbeat new novel. The only exciting incident ever to brighten Liz's life was a class trip to Rome when she was 16, during which she attended a party where she drank so much she can't remember what happened. Nine months after she returned home, she gave birth to a son, an event hidden from her family because of her natural rotundness. Liz gave the child up for adoption and then launched into a life of perpetual loneliness (hence the title's nod to the lonely lady of Beatles fame). All this changes when her now 20-year-old son, Jeremy, shows up. He's a great kid, but his story is tragic-he bounced around foster homes until he could take care of himself, he has multiple sclerosis and his body is rapidly deteriorating. Coupland, whose hip literary homeruns include Generation X and Hey Nostradamus, avoids the pitfalls of weepy melodrama with sarcastic humor, inspired treatment of the weirdness of everyday life and dark mystical interludes (Jeremy has bleak visions about farmers who receive odd messages from God). At the novel's spectacular, and spectacularly unexpected, denouement, Liz finally meets the father of her son. It's a bittersweet reunion and a perfect ending to this clever, inspired, brilliantly strange tale. Agent, Eric Simonoff at Janklow & Nesbit. (Jan.) Forecast: This is Coupland's tightest novel in recent years and will likely attract new readers while fully satisfying his loyal base. Six-city author tour. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In his ninth novel, veteran Canadian writer Coupland (Hey Nostradamus!) treads familiar ground with wayward Generation X characters and feckless family members, but here he is particularly interested in how loneliness affects his protagonist, the chronically solitary Liz Dunn. Liz has reconciled herself to seeking inner peace as her primary goal in life, since companionship on any level will always elude her. This mindset changes when terminally drab Liz discovers that she has a 20-year-old son, Jeremy, who has a debilitating physical affliction but the looks, personality, and charm of a young Tom Cruise. In the first part, Coupland provides a moving narrative as Liz learns for the first time what it's like to care and provide for someone you love. Unfortunately, he ultimately falls back on old standbys (e.g., zany plot twists) and a surfeit of caustically hip turns of phrase that dismantle most everything of substance developed in the book's beginning. This departure from poignancy eventually results in a satisfying transformation for Liz but an unrealistic one for readers. Given the book's unevenness, recommended only where Coupland is popular.-Kevin Greczek, Ewing, NJ Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews