The Gum Thief

This novel is fun, sincere, well-paced, and somehow timeless, despite Coupland's love of tech pop culture references. Aging loser Roger has hit rock bottom: he's divorced, disappointed, and drinking through his days at Staples. He befriends drifting, frustrated goth chick Bethany, and together they mock their mediocre coworkers and support each other through several personal catastrophes. Roger is secretly writing a wonderfully terrible novel (where Coupland gets to play the book-within-a-book trick), which Bethany reads and encourages. And in the process they both discover they have made a sincere connection with another human being. Many books in the trendy tech-age fiction genre focus on isolation despite technology, loneliness despite constant connectivity. Coupland has taken this theme and dropped it into a context that isn't savvy, sophisticated, or innovative at all. And yet it totally works: the result is that he has managed to distill this theme down into a few choice truths about the human condition. Wonderful!

The Gum Thief is easily one of the best books I have ever read. Coupland uses interesting characters that you can relate with. Staples provides an interesting and humorous setting for anyone who has worked in retail. The novel written by Roger within The Gum Thief is a great story as well. Coupland has a great sense of humor that he intermixes throughout the book. This is one of the few books that I actually never wanted to end. This is my first Douglas Coupland novel but it definately will not be my last. A+ for The Gum Thief.

Dear Doug, I want to apologize for trashing JPOD and also want to trash it again in advance if indeed it is becoming a TV show (at least that is what I heard) That's the bad news. The good news The Gum Thief brings back the Coupland your fans know and love. I especially liked the dig at the end of the book. As always awaiting your next book.

The Gum Thief, in my opinion, is Coupland's best since Hey Nostradamus!, which means a lot since HN! is one of my favorite books of all time. Every page of The Gum Thief is hilarious. I laughed out loud at least once on every page. As a writer, when I read a Coupland book, I get inspired, especially when it's as good as this. Well, enough about what I think. Here's a quick plot summation so you can figure out what this book is about: The Gum Thief follows Roger Thorpe, a mid-40's burnout working a customer service job at a Staples. He is divorced, still in shock from the death of one of his children, and trying to find meaning in a life that's over half gone. In a strange way, he befriends Bethany, an overweight Goth co-worker of his. Their friendship consists of taking turns writing entries in Roger's diary, espousing their fears about life, death, and try to attach meaning to seemingly meaningless nuances. But Bethany makes the rule that they have to act like they don't know each other around the store. The novel is in the form of written communication, whether it's Roger and Bethany's diary entries, letters from Roger's ex-wife, letters from Bethany's mom, Staples co-workers, or Roger's novel-in-progress, Glove Pond. The Gum Thief is about looking for meaning in life, loneliness, the effects of growing older, and the way writing communicates more about our lives than we would say to each other in person. A work of amazing emotional depth, one that I will be musing over for days to come, and one that I will keep on the shelf to read again one day.

I'm not afraid to finish this. It's the first meaty tidbit D.C. has thrown our way in quite some time. I loved his early books, been trying to hold out with the middle works, but this one hits home for late x'ers like me. There are many passages I feel like highlighting because they are so poetic. While "Jpod" seemed like a weak attempt to rekindle "Microserfs", this book is actually more like "Microserfs: HERE IS YOUR FUTURE!" If you currently feel jaded and like your life is going nowhere, buy this novel. It won't help, but it's nice. I confess I haven't finished yet (50%), so I might be really mad later and make an edit, but right now it's a very good read. Don't read any reviews because they spoil without warning!