From Amazon
Already dubbed Microserfs 2.0 by some pundits--a winking allusion to Douglas Coupland's previous novel Microserfs, which similarly chronicled pop-culture-damaged twentysomething misfits flailing, foundering, and occasionally succeeding in the high-tech sector--JPod is, like all of Coupland's novels, a byproduct of its era and yet strangely detached from it. Only this time with a bold and very crafty narrative device: Douglas Coupland, novelist, is a character in Douglas Coupland's novel. Which, when you think about it, makes sense since the type of people Coupland depicts are precisely the type of people who consume Coupland novels. As the once-great comedian Dennis Miller might holler, "Stop him before he sub-references again!" Readers familiar with Coupland's oeuvre know what to expect with the characterizations here. They also know that Coupland on a roll is both savagely observant and laugh-out-loud funny: "Bree was showing someone photos of her recent holiday visiting Korean animation sweathshops. She was bummed because she couldn't get into North Korea: too much legal juju. [She said] 'I just wanted to know what it's like to be in a society with no technology except for three dial telephones and a TV camera they won from Fidel Castro in a game of rock paper scissors.'" Much of the book is like that, built on granular and meandering exchanges between characters about . . . stuff. While JPod's flow is hobbled by some preposterous twists and character traits and by random words, phrases, and numbers splattered gratuitously across successive pages in oversized typeface, it's hard to imagine Coupland fans walking away disappointed. --Kim Hughes
From Publishers Weekly
Coupland returns, knowingly, to mine the dot-com territory of Microserfs (1996)—this time for slapstick. Young Ethan Jarlewski works long hours as a video-game developer in Vancouver, surfing the Internet for gore sites and having random conversations with co-workers on JPod, the cubicle hive where he works, where everyone's last name begins with J. Before Ethan can please the bosses and the marketing department (they want a turtle, based on a reality TV host, inserted into the game Ethan's been working on for months) or win the heart of co-worker Kaitlin, Ethan must help his mom bury a biker she's electrocuted in the family basement which houses her marijuana farm; give his dad, an actor desperately longing for a speaking part, yet another pep talk; feed the 20 illegal Chinese immigrants his brother has temporarily stored in Ethan's apartment; and pass downtime by trying to find a wrong digit in the first 100,000 places (printed on pages 383–406) of pi. Coupland's cultural name-dropping is predictable (Ikea, the Drudge Report, etc.), as is the device of bringing in a fictional Douglas Coupland to save Ethan's day more than once. But like an ace computer coder loaded up on junk food at 4 a.m., Coupland derives his satirical, spirited humor's energy from the silly, strung-together plot and thin characters. Call it Microserfs 2.0. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
No, "JPod" is not the next version of iPod; it refers to a group of geeks with last names starting with J cubicled together in a distant quadrant of a giant Vancouver video-game corporation. Coupland revisits the digital kingdom he so shrewdly depicted in Microserfs (1995) in a zeitgeist-trawling satire about twenty-first-century cyber obsession. JPoder Ethan Jarlewski narrates in deadpan geekspeak, reporting on life in gamer land, where he and his fellow designers--each precocious, cynical, oddball charming, and possibly a touch autistic--invent hilariously clever trivial pursuits to avoid work. But Ethan is often distracted from fun with porn sites, math problems, and an evil cyber version of Ronald McDonald by the crazy demands of his off-the-charts family. There's a South Park edginess and surrealism to the frequently violent escapades of Ethan's actor-wannabe father, gun-toting and pot-growing mother, and real-estate salesman brother, who gets them all entangled with the gangster Kam Fong. As both actual and cyber mayhem crest, Coupland, himself a character in this rampaging comedy, reminds us that no matter how seductive the virtual realm is, it is real life that requires our keenest attention. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Review
“Coupland is an accomplished and talented writer whose books are perennial bestsellers.”
–Quill & Quire
“[JPod] is a work in which his familiar misgivings about life on the technological cusp are again invoked, but also one in which the skills he’s been developing as a novelist pay off, where his satirical streak and his social consciousness finally stop fooling around with each other and settle down together…. JPod is a sleek and necessary device: the finely tuned output of an author whose obsolescence is thankfully years away.”
–The New York Times Book Review
“JPod is a seriously funny book,…a rolling thunder of sustained comedy, first page to last, as it ends up, and skewers the shamelessness and amorality that define our era…. Coupland’s timing is impeccable: JPod is the right book at the right time.”
–The Globe and Mail
Praise for Eleanor Rigby:
“Coupland’s. . .most accomplished work to date. . .could be one of the first great novels of the new century.”
––Kirkus (starred review)
“Eleanor Rigby. . .might prove to be among the best fiction of this new year.”
–Los Angeles Times
“What makes him hit us again and again, as though he were pelting meteorites from on high, is his ability to connect with ordinary human emotions and to make them profound.”
–Elle (Canada)
Praise for Hey Nostradamus!:
“A leap sideways from the acid irony which has shaded some of Coupland’s earlier novels. Instead, from the pen of one of the coolest authors on the planet has come a work of suffusing humanity.”
–Sunday Herald (UK)
“The leading literary voice of the most cynical generation lets it all out in a blaze of spirituality, terror, high comedy and soul-searching, and does it all in a way that is caring and clever, heartbreaking and hilarious, tough and tender. . .not only Coupland’s best novel, but also one of the best of the year.”
–The Hamilton Spectator
–Quill & Quire
“[JPod] is a work in which his familiar misgivings about life on the technological cusp are again invoked, but also one in which the skills he’s been developing as a novelist pay off, where his satirical streak and his social consciousness finally stop fooling around with each other and settle down together…. JPod is a sleek and necessary device: the finely tuned output of an author whose obsolescence is thankfully years away.”
–The New York Times Book Review
“JPod is a seriously funny book,…a rolling thunder of sustained comedy, first page to last, as it ends up, and skewers the shamelessness and amorality that define our era…. Coupland’s timing is impeccable: JPod is the right book at the right time.”
–The Globe and Mail
Praise for Eleanor Rigby:
“Coupland’s. . .most accomplished work to date. . .could be one of the first great novels of the new century.”
––Kirkus (starred review)
“Eleanor Rigby. . .might prove to be among the best fiction of this new year.”
–Los Angeles Times
“What makes him hit us again and again, as though he were pelting meteorites from on high, is his ability to connect with ordinary human emotions and to make them profound.”
–Elle (Canada)
Praise for Hey Nostradamus!:
“A leap sideways from the acid irony which has shaded some of Coupland’s earlier novels. Instead, from the pen of one of the coolest authors on the planet has come a work of suffusing humanity.”
–Sunday Herald (UK)
“The leading literary voice of the most cynical generation lets it all out in a blaze of spirituality, terror, high comedy and soul-searching, and does it all in a way that is caring and clever, heartbreaking and hilarious, tough and tender. . .not only Coupland’s best novel, but also one of the best of the year.”
–The Hamilton Spectator
Book Description
A lethal joyride into today’s new breed of technogeeks, Coupland’s forthcoming novel updates Microserfs for the age of Google.
Ethan Jarlewski and five co-workers whose names start with J are bureaucratically marooned in jPod. jPod is a no-escape architectural limbo on the fringes of a massive Vancouver game design company.
The six workers daily confront the forces that define our era: global piracy, boneheaded marketing staff, people smuggling, the rise of China, marijuana grow ops, Jeff Probst, and the ashes of the 1990s financial tech dream. jPod’s universe is amoral and shameless. The characters are products of their era even as they’re creating it.
Everybody in Ethan’s life inhabits a moral grey zone. Nobody is exempt, not even his seemingly straitlaced parents or Coupland himself, as readers will see.
Full of word games, visual jokes and sideways jabs, this book throws a sharp, pointed lawn dart into the heart of contemporary life. jPod is Douglas Coupland at the top of his game.
Excerpt from jPod:
I slunk into the BoardX meeting where Steve, Gord-O, and staff from the loftiest perches of the food chain were still trying to nail the essence of Jeff the Charismatic Turtle. Prototype turtle sketches were pinned onto a massive cork wall, all of them goofy and teensploitational: sunglasses, baggy pants and (dear God) a terry-cloth sweatband.
“Does Jeff the Turtle follow players around the entire time they manipulate their third person?”
“Almost. Like Watson is to Sherlock Holmes.”
“Can you imagine how annoying that would be?”
“Maybe the buddy isn’t such a good idea.”
Steve squashed that hope. “It’s going to be a buddy. Players will love it.”
“It’s really Poochie-Joins-Itchy-and-Scratchy.”
“How am I ever going to look somebody who plays Tony Hawk games in the face again?”
“Isn’t our turtle supposed to be a bit more studly?”
“Turtles aren’t studly by nature.”
“What about the turtle they used in the 1950s to pimp the atomic weapons program? He was kind of studly.”
“No he wasn’t and, besides, he’s dead.”
“What?”
“Dead. Hanged himself from the side of his posh midtown Manhattan terrarium. Left a note saying he couldn’t handle the shame of what he’d done. Wrote it on a piece of Bibb lettuce.”
Ethan Jarlewski and five co-workers whose names start with J are bureaucratically marooned in jPod. jPod is a no-escape architectural limbo on the fringes of a massive Vancouver game design company.
The six workers daily confront the forces that define our era: global piracy, boneheaded marketing staff, people smuggling, the rise of China, marijuana grow ops, Jeff Probst, and the ashes of the 1990s financial tech dream. jPod’s universe is amoral and shameless. The characters are products of their era even as they’re creating it.
Everybody in Ethan’s life inhabits a moral grey zone. Nobody is exempt, not even his seemingly straitlaced parents or Coupland himself, as readers will see.
Full of word games, visual jokes and sideways jabs, this book throws a sharp, pointed lawn dart into the heart of contemporary life. jPod is Douglas Coupland at the top of his game.
Excerpt from jPod:
I slunk into the BoardX meeting where Steve, Gord-O, and staff from the loftiest perches of the food chain were still trying to nail the essence of Jeff the Charismatic Turtle. Prototype turtle sketches were pinned onto a massive cork wall, all of them goofy and teensploitational: sunglasses, baggy pants and (dear God) a terry-cloth sweatband.
“Does Jeff the Turtle follow players around the entire time they manipulate their third person?”
“Almost. Like Watson is to Sherlock Holmes.”
“Can you imagine how annoying that would be?”
“Maybe the buddy isn’t such a good idea.”
Steve squashed that hope. “It’s going to be a buddy. Players will love it.”
“It’s really Poochie-Joins-Itchy-and-Scratchy.”
“How am I ever going to look somebody who plays Tony Hawk games in the face again?”
“Isn’t our turtle supposed to be a bit more studly?”
“Turtles aren’t studly by nature.”
“What about the turtle they used in the 1950s to pimp the atomic weapons program? He was kind of studly.”
“No he wasn’t and, besides, he’s dead.”
“What?”
“Dead. Hanged himself from the side of his posh midtown Manhattan terrarium. Left a note saying he couldn’t handle the shame of what he’d done. Wrote it on a piece of Bibb lettuce.”
From the Back Cover
Praise for Eleanor Rigby:
“Coupland’s. . .most accomplished work to date. . .could be one of the first great novels of the new century.”
––Kirkus (starred review)
“Eleanor Rigby. . .might prove to be among the best fiction of this new year.”
–Los Angeles Times
“What makes him hit us again and again, as though he were pelting meteorites from on high, is his ability to connect with ordinary human emotions and to make them profound.”
–Elle (Canada)
Praise for Hey Nostradamus!:
“A leap sideways from the acid irony which has shaded some of Coupland’s earlier novels. Instead, from the pen of one of the coolest authors on the planet has come a work of suffusing humanity.”
–Sunday Herald (UK)
“The leading literary voice of the most cynical generation lets it all out in a blaze of spirituality, terror, high comedy and soul-searching, and does it all in a way that is caring and clever, heartbreaking and hilarious, tough and tender. . .not only Coupland’s best novel, but also one of the best of the year.”
–The Hamilton Spectator
“Coupland’s. . .most accomplished work to date. . .could be one of the first great novels of the new century.”
––Kirkus (starred review)
“Eleanor Rigby. . .might prove to be among the best fiction of this new year.”
–Los Angeles Times
“What makes him hit us again and again, as though he were pelting meteorites from on high, is his ability to connect with ordinary human emotions and to make them profound.”
–Elle (Canada)
Praise for Hey Nostradamus!:
“A leap sideways from the acid irony which has shaded some of Coupland’s earlier novels. Instead, from the pen of one of the coolest authors on the planet has come a work of suffusing humanity.”
–Sunday Herald (UK)
“The leading literary voice of the most cynical generation lets it all out in a blaze of spirituality, terror, high comedy and soul-searching, and does it all in a way that is caring and clever, heartbreaking and hilarious, tough and tender. . .not only Coupland’s best novel, but also one of the best of the year.”
–The Hamilton Spectator
About the Author
Douglas Coupland was born on a NATO base in Germany in 1961. He is the author of Eleanor Rigby, Hey Nostradamus!, All Families Are Psychotic, Microserfs and Generation X, among others. He is also a visual artist and sculptor, furniture designer and screenwriter, as well as the author of Souvenir of Canada and its sequel, Souvenir of Canada 2. His most recent book is Terry, the story of Terry Fox. He lives and works in Vancouver.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
"Oh God. I feel like a refugee from a Douglas Coupland novel.”
“That asshole.”
“Who does he think he is?”
“Come on, guys, focus. We’ve got a major problem on our hands.”
The six of us were silent, but for our footsteps. The main corridor’s muted plasma TVs blipped out the news and sports, while co-workers in long-sleeved blue and black T-shirts oompah-loompahed in and out of laminate-access doors, elevated walkways, staircases and elevators, their missions inscrutable and squirrelly. It was a rare sunny day. Freakishly articulated sunbeams highlighted specks of mica in the hallway’s designer granite. They looked like randomized particle events.
Mark said, “I can’t even think about what just happened in there.”
John Doe said, “I’d like to do whatever it is people statistically do when confronted by a jolt of large and bad news.”
I suggested he ingest five milligrams of Valium and three shots of hard liquor or four glasses of domestic wine.
“Really?”
“Don’t ask me, John. Google it.”
“And so I shall.”
Cowboy had a jones for cough syrup, while Bree fished through one of her many pink vinyl Japanese handbags for lip gloss – phase one of her well-established pattern of pursuing sexual conquest to silence her inner pain.
The only quiet member of our group of six was Kaitlin, new to our work area as of the day before. She was walking with us mostly because she didn’t yet know how to get from the meeting room to our cubicles. We’re not sure if Kaitlin is boring or if she’s resistant to bonding, but then again none of us have really cranked up our charm.
We passed Warren from the motion capture studio. “Yo! jPodsters! A turtle! All right!” He flashed a thumbs-up.
“Thank you, Warren. We can all feel the love in the room.”
Clearly, via the gift of text messaging, Warren and pretty much everyone in the company now knew of our plight, which is this: during today’s marketing meeting we learned we now have to retroactively insert a charismatic cuddly turtle character into our skateboard game, which is already nearly one-third of the way through its production cycle. Yes, you read that correctly, a turtle character–in a skateboard game.
The three-hour meeting had taken place in a two-hundred-seat room nicknamed the air-conditioned rectum. I tried to make the event go faster by pretending to have superpower vision: I could see the carbon dioxide pumping in and out of everyone’s nose and mouth – it was purple. It made me think of that urban legend about the chemical they put in swimming pools that reveals when somebody pees. Then I wondered if Leonardo da Vinci had ever inhaled any of the oxygen molecules I was breathing, or if he ever had to sit through a marketing meeting. What would that have been like? “Leo, thanks for your input, but our studies indicate that when they see Lisa smile, they want a sexy, flirty smile, not that grim little slit she has now. Also, I don’t know what that closet case Michelangelo is thinking with that naked David guy, but Jesus, clamp a diaper onto him pronto. Next item on the agenda: Perspective – Passing Fad or Opportunity to Win? But first, Katie here is going to tell us about this Friday’s Jeans Day, to be followed by a ten-minute muffin break.”
But the word “turtle” pulled me out of my reverie, uttered by Fearless Leader–our new head of marketing, Steve. I put up my hand and quite reasonably asked, “Sorry, Steve, did you say a turtle?”
Christine, a senior development director, said, “No need to be sarcastic, Ethan. Steve here took Toblerone chocolate and turned it around inside of two years.”
“No,” Steve protested. “I appreciate an open dialogue. All I’m really saying is that, at home, my son, Carter, plays SimQuest4 and can’t get enough of its turtle character, and if my Carter likes turtle characters, then a turtle character is a winner, and thus, this skateboard game needs a turtle.”
John Doe BlackBerried me: I CAN’T FEEL MY LEGS
And so the order was issued to make our new turtle character “accessible” and “fun” and the buzzword is so horrible I have to spell it out in ASCII: “{101, 100, 103, 121}”
• • •
Back in our cubicle pod, the six of us fizzled away from each other like ginger ale bubbles. I had eighteen new emails and one phone message, my mother: “Dear, could you give me a call? I really need to speak with you–it’s an emergency.”
An emergency? I phoned her cell right away. “Mom, what’s up? What’s wrong?”
“Ethan, are you at work right now?”
“Where else would I be?”
“I’m at SuperValu. Let me call you back from a pay phone.”
The line went dead. I picked it up when it rang.
“Mom, you said this was an emergency.”
“It is, dear. Ethan, honey, I need you to help me.”
“I just got out of the Worst Meeting Ever. What’s going on?”
“I suppose I’d better just tell you flat out.”
“Tell me what?”
“Ethan, I killed a biker.”
“You killed a biker?”
“Well, I didn’t mean to.”
“Mom, how the hell did you manage to kill a biker?”
“Ethan, just come home right now. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Why doesn’t Dad help?”
“He’s on a shoot today. He might get a speaking part.”
She hung up.
• • •
On my way out of the office, I passed a world-building team, standing in a semicircle, staring at a large German-made knife on a desktop.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“It’s the knife we’re using to cut Aidan’s birthday cake,” a friend, Josh, replied.
I looked more closely at the knife: it was clownishly big. “Okay, it’s hard-core Itchy & Scratchy – but so what?”
“We’re having a contest – we’re trying to see if there’s any way to hold a knife and walk across a room and not look psycho."
“That asshole.”
“Who does he think he is?”
“Come on, guys, focus. We’ve got a major problem on our hands.”
The six of us were silent, but for our footsteps. The main corridor’s muted plasma TVs blipped out the news and sports, while co-workers in long-sleeved blue and black T-shirts oompah-loompahed in and out of laminate-access doors, elevated walkways, staircases and elevators, their missions inscrutable and squirrelly. It was a rare sunny day. Freakishly articulated sunbeams highlighted specks of mica in the hallway’s designer granite. They looked like randomized particle events.
Mark said, “I can’t even think about what just happened in there.”
John Doe said, “I’d like to do whatever it is people statistically do when confronted by a jolt of large and bad news.”
I suggested he ingest five milligrams of Valium and three shots of hard liquor or four glasses of domestic wine.
“Really?”
“Don’t ask me, John. Google it.”
“And so I shall.”
Cowboy had a jones for cough syrup, while Bree fished through one of her many pink vinyl Japanese handbags for lip gloss – phase one of her well-established pattern of pursuing sexual conquest to silence her inner pain.
The only quiet member of our group of six was Kaitlin, new to our work area as of the day before. She was walking with us mostly because she didn’t yet know how to get from the meeting room to our cubicles. We’re not sure if Kaitlin is boring or if she’s resistant to bonding, but then again none of us have really cranked up our charm.
We passed Warren from the motion capture studio. “Yo! jPodsters! A turtle! All right!” He flashed a thumbs-up.
“Thank you, Warren. We can all feel the love in the room.”
Clearly, via the gift of text messaging, Warren and pretty much everyone in the company now knew of our plight, which is this: during today’s marketing meeting we learned we now have to retroactively insert a charismatic cuddly turtle character into our skateboard game, which is already nearly one-third of the way through its production cycle. Yes, you read that correctly, a turtle character–in a skateboard game.
The three-hour meeting had taken place in a two-hundred-seat room nicknamed the air-conditioned rectum. I tried to make the event go faster by pretending to have superpower vision: I could see the carbon dioxide pumping in and out of everyone’s nose and mouth – it was purple. It made me think of that urban legend about the chemical they put in swimming pools that reveals when somebody pees. Then I wondered if Leonardo da Vinci had ever inhaled any of the oxygen molecules I was breathing, or if he ever had to sit through a marketing meeting. What would that have been like? “Leo, thanks for your input, but our studies indicate that when they see Lisa smile, they want a sexy, flirty smile, not that grim little slit she has now. Also, I don’t know what that closet case Michelangelo is thinking with that naked David guy, but Jesus, clamp a diaper onto him pronto. Next item on the agenda: Perspective – Passing Fad or Opportunity to Win? But first, Katie here is going to tell us about this Friday’s Jeans Day, to be followed by a ten-minute muffin break.”
But the word “turtle” pulled me out of my reverie, uttered by Fearless Leader–our new head of marketing, Steve. I put up my hand and quite reasonably asked, “Sorry, Steve, did you say a turtle?”
Christine, a senior development director, said, “No need to be sarcastic, Ethan. Steve here took Toblerone chocolate and turned it around inside of two years.”
“No,” Steve protested. “I appreciate an open dialogue. All I’m really saying is that, at home, my son, Carter, plays SimQuest4 and can’t get enough of its turtle character, and if my Carter likes turtle characters, then a turtle character is a winner, and thus, this skateboard game needs a turtle.”
John Doe BlackBerried me: I CAN’T FEEL MY LEGS
And so the order was issued to make our new turtle character “accessible” and “fun” and the buzzword is so horrible I have to spell it out in ASCII: “{101, 100, 103, 121}”
• • •
Back in our cubicle pod, the six of us fizzled away from each other like ginger ale bubbles. I had eighteen new emails and one phone message, my mother: “Dear, could you give me a call? I really need to speak with you–it’s an emergency.”
An emergency? I phoned her cell right away. “Mom, what’s up? What’s wrong?”
“Ethan, are you at work right now?”
“Where else would I be?”
“I’m at SuperValu. Let me call you back from a pay phone.”
The line went dead. I picked it up when it rang.
“Mom, you said this was an emergency.”
“It is, dear. Ethan, honey, I need you to help me.”
“I just got out of the Worst Meeting Ever. What’s going on?”
“I suppose I’d better just tell you flat out.”
“Tell me what?”
“Ethan, I killed a biker.”
“You killed a biker?”
“Well, I didn’t mean to.”
“Mom, how the hell did you manage to kill a biker?”
“Ethan, just come home right now. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Why doesn’t Dad help?”
“He’s on a shoot today. He might get a speaking part.”
She hung up.
• • •
On my way out of the office, I passed a world-building team, standing in a semicircle, staring at a large German-made knife on a desktop.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“It’s the knife we’re using to cut Aidan’s birthday cake,” a friend, Josh, replied.
I looked more closely at the knife: it was clownishly big. “Okay, it’s hard-core Itchy & Scratchy – but so what?”
“We’re having a contest – we’re trying to see if there’s any way to hold a knife and walk across a room and not look psycho."
