Girlfriend in a Coma - Tapa dura

Girls, memory, parenting, millennial fear – all served Coupland-style.

Karen, an attractive, popular student, goes into a coma one night in 1979. Whilst in it, she gives birth to a healthy baby daughter; once out of it, a mere eighteen years later, she finds herself, Rip van Winkle-like, a middle-aged mother whose friends have all gone through all the normal marital, social and political traumas and back again...

This tragicomedy shows Coupland in his most mature form yet, writing with all his customary powers of acute observation, but turning his attention away from the surface of modern life to the dynamics of modern relationships, and doing so with all the sly wit and weird accuracy we expect of the soothsaying author of Generation X, Shampoo Planet, Life After God, Microserfs and Polaroids from the Dead.

What did Karen see that December Night? What pictures of tomorrow could so disturb her that she would flee into a refuge of bottomless sleep? What images would frighten her out of her body, making her leave the world? Why would she leave me? C’mon, Karen-BEB-sugar pops, starbaby – we all know life’s hard...we found that one out pretty quick. You told me we were all going to be dead – but – alive zombies in the future.That’s what you said. Fair’s fair. Tell us what you meant, Karen. I want an answer. Wake up. Wake up, Okay? We’ll drive down town and have an Orange Julius. Hey! – We’ll drive to the states for a steak dinner the size of a mattress. We’ll drive to Europe and drink champagne and we’ll stop in Greenland for ice cubes along the way.
Knock Knock. Who’s there? It’s me, Karen. No joke, no punchline – c’est moi. Will you come out? Or will you let me in?