Book Review: Hey Nostradamus!

Reviewed By: Woodstock - RAM

Hey Nostradamus!     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Douglas Coupland
Class/Genre:   Fiction

Very intriguing, and equally hard to categorize. Borrowing from headlines of a few years ago, Coupland begins the book with a meditation by a high school student shot to death in a school house massacre. Cheryl relates the invasion of the cafeteria by three armed fellow students, and speaking from a vague type of limbo remembers her young lover Jason, their furtive marriage and her own religious conversion.

Three longer chapters follow - moving forward in time at varying intervals, and using the voices of Jason, a woman who loves him as an adult, and Jason's father. Ultimately Coupland's theme resolves itself into the tragic gaps in communication between people who love each other. And little by little we learn more details of the aftermath of the massacre at the school. However we learn almost nothing about that crime itself. The events of that day are truly beside the point as we follow the circumstances of Jason's days, months and years which followed Cheryl's death. Stumbling through the remainder of his life, trying and failing to connect with those who love him, Jason is the unacknowledged victim of the murderers who invaded the school that day.

Quirky - but definitely worth the time spent to read it!

Woodstock - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Woodstock - RAM