Miss Wyoming
August 14th, 2003by Douglas Coupland
ISBN: 0375707239
This is definitely a Coupland novel — over the top pop culture references, quirky characters doing not-quite-believable yet works-in-this-context things — the bizarre as familiar.
I wish it were better a better Coupland novel. Microserfs, or All Families Are Psychotic, even Girlfriend in a Coma was better. I found the hammering of pop culture not as clever (granted, Coupland usually thinks he is being more clever than he really is) or entertaining as I have in novels past. I think it may be that mining the movie industry and children’s pageants is just not going to yield as much gold.
The story revolves around Susan Colgate, former child pageant participant, sitcom actress, and sole survivor of a plane crash, and John Lodge Johnson, former sickly child turned confused, drug-addled idea pitcher. These people aren’t that likeable or sympathetic, neither are they the kind of characters you enjoy hating; they are mostly taking up space, being annoying, and trying to find meaning and usually failing because their lives have been too empty to prepare them for real meaning even if they do manage to trip over it.
There are various minor characters in orbit around Susan and John: Susan’s driven escaped-from-hillbilly-torture mother, John’s friend and business partner Ivan and wife Nylla, Susan’s closeted gay rocker husband, a former pageant judge turned mail-fraud hermit Eugene, a numerologist, a video store clerk/screenwriter Ryan and his genius girlfriend Vanessa. Actually, I liked Ryan and Vanessa. I think they were the most interesting characters in the book, and I could have done with more of them and less of phone calls to somebody to get them to fix something.
If you are already a Coupland fan and a completist-type reader, you’ll probably want to read this; if skewering child pageantry or mocking Hollywood has a strong appeal, you’ll probably like it. Otherwise you can safely pass it up. New-to-Coupland readers would be better of starting with any other of his books.
