Miss Wyoming

by Douglas Coupland

From the bestselling author of Generation X and Microserfs, comes the absurd and tender story of a hard-living movie producer and a former child beauty pageant contender who only find each other by losing themselves.

Waking up in an L.A. hospital, John Johnson is amazed that it was the flu and not an overdose of five different drugs mixed with cognac that nearly killed him. As a producer of high-adrenaline action flicks, he's led a decadent and dangerous life, purchasing his way through every conceivable variant of sex. But each variation seems to take him one notch away from a capacity for love, and while movie-making was once a way for him to create worlds of sensation, it now bores him. After his near-death experience, John decides to walk away from his life.

Susan Colgate is an unbankable former tv star and child beauty pageant contender. Forced to marry a heavy metal singer in need of a Green Card after her parents squander her sitcom earnings, she becomes the alpha road rat. But when the band's popularity dwindles, the marriage dissolves. Flying back to Los Angeles in Economy, Susan's plane crashes   and only she survives. As she walks away from the disaster virtually unscathed, Susan, too, decides to disappear.

John and Susan are two souls searching for love across the bizarre, celebrity-obsessed landscape of LA, and are driven, almost fatefully, toward each other. Hilarious, fast-paced and ultimately heart-wrenching, Miss Wyoming is about people who, after throwing off their self-made identities, begin the fearful search for a love that exposes all vulnerabilities.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Canada, Novels, Literature, Literary Fiction, The United States Of America

319 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Douglas Coupland is Canadian, born on a Canadian Air Force base near Baden-Baden, Germany, on December 30, 1961. In 1965 his family moved to Vancouver, Canada, where he continues to live and work. Coupland has studied art and design in Vancouver, Canada, Milan, Italy and Sapporo, Japan. His first novel, Generation X, was published in March of 1991. Since then he has published nine novels and several non-fiction books in 35 languages and most countries on earth. He has written and performed for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, England, and in 2001 resumed his practice as a visual artist, with exhibitions in spaces in North America, Europe and Asia. 2006 marks the premiere of the feature film Everything's Gone Green, his first story written specifically for the screen and not adapted from any previous work. A TV series (13 one-hour episodes) based on his novel, jPod premieres on the CBC in January, 2008.

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Retrieved 07:55, May 15, 2008, from http://www.coupland.com/coupland_bio....

Reviews

[Raych · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's something in me that hates Douglas Coupland. Maybe it's that well-documented Canadian self-loathing that resents seeing one of our own succeed. Maybe it's because he can be too too cutesy sometimes, and it makes me throw up in my mouth a little. Maybe it's because Life After God was total quasi-philosophical crap, and it was one of three crappy books I brought on my honeymoon, making Le Coupland one-third of the reason I had to lower myself to borrowing one of the leave-a-book, take-a-book shoddy murder mysteries.


But damn if he hasn't won me over.


It took me about a chapter and a half to get over myself and enjoy the book. There's definitely a case of what I like to call 'Cayenne-pepper-in-everything-syndrome' going on here. I almost put the book down when the first page assaulted me with this: 'She was a woman on a magazine cover, gazing out at the checkout-stand shopper, smiling, but locked in time and space, away from the real world of squalling babies, bank cards and casual shoplifting' and then the second page gave me this: 'He looked at her with the unsure smile of a high school junior bracing himself to ask a girl one social notch above him to dance at the prom, his hands behind his back like a penitent child.' Because it's too much, see? Too much analogy, too many adjectives, too many clauses, too much interesting, relevant detail. And that's what gets my goat.


But his characters are just so interesting. Remember how I hated Cumberland because I just couldn't care about anyone? Remember that? And how it ruined the whole book for me, because if nothing else, I need to care? I cared about Miss Wyoming, nee Susan Colgate, and I cared about her slavish, show-dog upbringing, and by the end I even cared about her merciless, overbearing mother! I cared about the ridiculously-named John Johnson, and his ill-fated attempt to cast off the shackles of celebrity and discover hisself. I cared enough to puzzle out the wacky hops in chronology, which actually made the story even more engaging but kind of left me in the dark at the start of each chapter while I tried to figure out whether this is before or after the plane crash where Susan disappears, before or after the chance meeting that opens the book, before or after John Johnson technically dies (don't worry, he un-dies and everything's fine). I cared when Susan went disappearing again, this time in real-time and not in a loopy flashback, and then John Johnson and his two new friends, the brilliant video-store-clerk/script-writer Ryan and his brilliant human-computer girlfriend Vanessa set out to find her, I mustered the energy to hope that they would succeed! And I went to all that trouble because I totally gave a shit! I gave many shits! I can't think of any way to make that phrase sound less filthy!!


And as for Coupland's awful, I'm-so-clever lines, he has this one bit about being on the Interstate Highway 'amid the truckloads of lettuce and hay bales and lumber that John thought seemed to never leave the roads, as if they existed in some sort of perpetual caffeinated loop' that made me shut the book and laugh, because yes! They do. Which I guess amounts to saying that you never know what's going to tickle who, and that all these lines that I roll my eyes at probably delight someone else no end, and that doesn't make me a better or more discerning person. It just means that my little heart is made of spiders and soot, and I should probably lighten up.

This is me, lightening up.

(review originally published on www.booksidoneread.blogspot.com)

[Nadra · Rating 4 out of 5]

my favorite dialog in the book. john asks twin prostitutes to become his assistants:

"Be my assistants. I need help right now."

There was a pause. Krista said, "I don't know, Mr Johnson."

"No. No. It's not a sex thing. I swear, no sex. You guys are smart and ambitious," John said.

"Is that what you look for in assistants?" Krista said.

"Fuck, yes. Smartness, hipness, alertness, greed and speed."

Krista continued: "Is this how you normally hire assistants?"

"Nahhh. What I normally do is put ads in the paper advertising Eames furniture at ridiculously low prices."

"That's that 1950's stuff, isn't it?" asked Cindy.

"Bingo. It's this furniture designed for poor people, but poor people never liked it, and the only people who know about it or care about it are rich or smart. So anybody who answers that ad really quickly is de facto smart, alert, greedy and hip."

[Katrice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Copeland and I have to say, this is the most un-Copeland book of his I've read. It's so. . . normal. And it actually has a storyline. He actually focuses on telling a story rather then creating quirky characters or exploring a state of mind. And he does a good job. I actually want to know what's happened to both John and Susan during their "lost" periods and am rooting for them to come together in the end.

[Fellini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Маратовна, друг мой филологический сноб, говорит что Коупленд - это разбавленный Том Роббинс. Не могу с ней не согласиться: чтиво действительно увлекательное, изобилующее интересными подробностями и "вкусными" описаниями, но при том легкоусвояемое. Роман об изнанке американской мечты, о нелёгкой судьбе людей, призванных удовлетворять своей жизнью чьи-то амбиции. Невесёлой такой судьбе. Когда жизнь "как должно быть" надоедает остаётся только один выход - найти четвёртое измерение и ускользнуть в него. Хорошо, если рядом есть друзья, способные проехать полстраны, узнать самую тщательно скрываемую информацию, сделать много чего ещё, чтобы помочь начать совсем другую жизнь.

[Dean Cummings · Rating 5 out of 5]

“There was always this little pet image that I had in England, because I’d been a child star. It was very difficult for me to get past that, whereas in France they knew nothing about that…they just liked me as I was. And that was amazing for me!”

Petula Clarke talking about the “career liberation” that came about when she moved from England to France.

Miss Wyoming by Douglas Coupland.

Susan Colgate…

Seat 58-A came to rest in the middle of a sorghum field.

The seat stood perfectly vertical, still affixed to a large section of the fuselage. Susan Colgate was still sitting in her assigned seat, still strapped in, still seeing the rapidly changing progression of mental pictures from cabin crew serving passengers, to long downward free float, to the yank and shearing as the plane slid into soil. She sat there, taking in the small plume of smoke rising before her, then without warning, an acrid smell of fuel hit her, rousing her to consider her next action.

She unbuckled her seat belt and rose up from her chair.

She ran her hands down her sides, legs, chest and lower back, then around her neck, searching for the signs of broken skin or bone that was likely to be there. But there was none, she was unscathed.
The same could not be said of the other passengers of Flight 802 from New York to Los Angeles.
She stumbled through the field of wreckage, the broken body parts, the luggage, burst open like popcorn from a bag, all mixed with dirt, roots and dandelions. Everyone else appeared to be dead…but she’s survived.

But Susan’s survival wasn’t the only unique thing about her.

She was also a celebrity of sorts…an actress who’d known fame, then a gradual but steady career slide, descending from the A-list to b roles to near obscurity. It was a life of increasing dissatisfaction…one she’d hoped to escape for quite some time…but how?

Knowing that her survival would spark a media onslaught, she distanced herself from the scene as quickly as possible, soon losing herself among the crowd of local onlookers. From there, she spies out a newly paved road that leads to a housing development.

Somewhere among the row after row of little residential enclaves, hidden in suburbia plain sight, was sure to be a place of temporary sanctuary. A place to gather and regroup.

The neighborhood was abandoned, it seemed, which made sense considering the fact that most would’ve left their houses, hurriedly scampering toward the scene of the crash.

After some time, she encounters a house with a pile of junk mail piled high at the front door. She knocks and finds no response, then tries the door. Locked. She then slips into the back yard and finds the back door is also locked. Then quietly as possible, she breaks a small section of the latticed door window, carefully reaches in to open the deadbolt then enters the house.

There is no alarm system, she soon discovers, but there is a calendar, magnet-affixed to the refrigerator. The calendar tells the story, the family living here, (The Galvin’s) are on vacation in Orlando for another seven days.

This, she decides will be her place of refuge.

Over the course of the next week, Susan lives in the Galvin’s home, sleeping in one of the beds, eating canned food, and watching the never-ending stream of news broadcasts about the crash. Soon she sees the features about herself, the otherworldly flickering images of news anchor speaking with an old headshot of herself in the background. She hears the woman on the screen as she reports on the fact that the body of Susan Colgate has not been found, then she’s interviewing a so-called expert who offers his opinion as to what may have happened. There were a number of badly burned bodies, the woman on the TV reports, which reminds Susan that she has a bit of time, but also that she must start thinking ahead, after all, it would only be a matter of time until they realized she was missing…

And that would be a major issue for her, because Susan Colgate waned to be far, far away from Seneca, Ohio when that happened…

“Once that plane hit the ground, I’ll no longer be me. I’ll go on being whatever comes next…”

On the morning of the day the Galvin’s were to return from vacation, Susan walks about the house with Windex and a towel, wiping away any evidence of her stay. She finds a few clothes that she assumes are owned by Mrs. Galvin, and since they’re near the back of the closet, assumes them to be largely forgotten. She finds a gym bag underneath a pile of items which contains a stash of energy bars. She also finds a wig, which she tries on and is immediately pleased to know doesn’t make her feel too sweaty. A pair of sensible walking shoes completes her transformational ensemble.

She finds a bottle of Jack Daniels in the wet bar, empties most of it and sets the bottle on the living room coffee table. She sets six “used” glasses around the bottle and tosses the sofa cushions a bit. The scene of “harmless teenage” drunken break-in is set.

She walks out the back-patio door, dropping her garbage into the neighbor’s trash can while deciding where to go next. She’s “walking away from her life” so where would one go when they’re in the midst of such an escapade.

For some unexplainable reason, she chooses Indiana.

John Johnson…

John is a hard-living movie producer whose years of reckless living have finally landed him in a hospital bed. He’s been here for days now, recovering from his body’s reaction to the previous evening’s mixture of methamphetamine, oxazepam and a half a dozen Kit Kats.

In what proves to be his first moment of clarity, he spots the face of a woman on the TV screen. She’s speaking to him, he decides. He’s not aware that the woman is Susan Colgate, but hears her “message” all he same:

“Look at me, John,” he sees her saying.

“I’m looking…I’m looking,” he replies.

“No, you’re not. You’re looking for a way to get rid of me and fly back to space again,” she asserts.

The two-dimensional face of Susan Colgate and the bed-ridden movie producer continue their hospital room conversation which culminates with John’s realization that he must turn his back on his hedonistic lifestyle.

Two weeks later, john leaves Cedars-Sinai, complete with a new outlook on life and a newfound “clean” approach to life. He’s physically restored, but restless.

The vision of the woman on the TV, the one he’s unaware to be Susan Colgate, reminds him of his mantra, “I don’t want to be me anymore…” He decides that the best avenue to reaching his goal is by disappearing.

Walking away from his life.

By embarking on a quest for the woman on the TV screen he will find fulfillment.

He then liquidates all his possessions, tucking away his movie-producer persona and stepping into a life of street hoboism.

The opening pages of the book grabbed me right away…

Here we see Susan Colgate, sitting with her agent on a restaurant patio.

They both spot John Johnson who is standing across the street.

“He vanished for awhile earlier this year,” the agent tells Susan. “Turns out he OD’d and had some kind of vision, then afterward, he gave up everything he had – his house, his cars, copyrights and everything else, then turned himself into a bum…”

Suddenly, Susan and her agent notice Johnson walking toward them, “Hello, I’m John Johnson,” he says in greeting, “I’m Susan Colgate,” she replies and over the course of the next few minutes, John and Susan enter a surreal, yet honest conversation:

“My movies are crap…” she declares.

John, for his part, is suddenly reminded that the ninety $20 bills in his pocket represented all the money he had in the world.

It’s at this point that John asks Susan if she would like to go for a walk with him. She agrees, leaving her astounded agent sitting on the patio.

It’s over the course of that walk that John reveals to Susan that he’d had a vision that changed the course of his life. He told her that the vision came to him by way of a woman’s face on the TV screen.

He told her that he now knew her to be that woman.

“The vision of you was my refuge” he tells her. She was the one who prompted him to “start over” in his life, a theme which felt familiar to Susan. John explained that he walked away from everything and entered the life of a street person. She felt herself connecting with this man.
Just then, a Beverly Hills police car pulls up, “Can we help you; can we give you a lift?” The officers have recognized the actress. Susan accepts their offer, then turns to John,

“You know, I don’t even know my own phone number, call Adam Norwitz…but call me…”

Then she climbs into the police car, which seconds later pulls away, leaving John sanding there.
What followed was a unique storyline that had me up at night, still reading long after I should’ve been sleeping. Chapter after chapter, I found myself becoming more and more invested in Susan Colgate, both from the standpoint of intriguing fictional character and later, a deeper appreciation for the ways in which a parent can foist their dreams on their children and the consequences of doing such a thing.

But underneath it all, this proved to be a captivating read. I knew it would be by the end of the second chapter, and by that point I hadn’t yet encountered the mail fraud weatherman, nor did I know of the unbelievable things that an airline can drop from the sky…

Over time I may forget many of the details of this story.

But I know I won’t forget how I felt about it.

[Marie-Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Odd and reasonably entertaining, with a surprisingly nice turn of phrase here and there.

[Mairi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like Douglas Copeland, I don't know why, objectively his books are full of issues... But when I'm in a second hand bookshop browsing the C section of authors, I usually leave with a book or two of his.

This one was odd. It follows Susan Colgate, an ex-pageant girl and John Johnson, a failing action film director. Both characters "disappeared" in their lives. Susan after becoming the sole survivor of a plane crash and John after throwing away all his IDs and walking off. The two find each other at a pivotal moment in the plot... and you can't help but root for them to get together.

In real Douglas Copeland form, there were some powerful moments. One of my favourite (which I went in with a pencil and underlined) was a passage about how people change. That from one career to another, or from one decade to the next a person becomes someone totally different. The character laments that he can feel himself ebbing away, that the person the people around him know and love won't be around much longer and that there's nothing he can do about it. It might sound silly, but that one hit home.

In all, I enjoyed this book but not as madly as I've enjoyed others by the same author in the past. 3.5 / 5 rounded up to 4 bc Goodreads doesn't do half ratings.

[E. Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Miss Wyoming is as delightful as it is frightening. Frightening in the sense that, yes, this is the human condition. It skips about in time, narrating both the history and current affairs of a former teen pageant queen and a washed up movie star. Susan Colgate has survived a plane crash followed by a year-long disappearance; John Johnson has survived a drug overdose followed by months of self-prescribed homelessness. Both characters grew up amid some extremely odd family dynamics. As the story switches perspectives and carves out each surprise, you find yourself putting faith in the aforementioned human condition, and the odd little mission that this pair ultimately have set out to achieve.

[Sonja · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I have been a supporter of Douglas Coupland for over 30 years now. When his writings work, they work. When they don't, it just feels like he is trying too hard. Miss Wyoming for the most part, works well. Primarily, this novel is the stories of a former beauty pageant queen and a former Hollywood producer, and it paints the pictures of their lives before and after they meet for the first time. The plot didn't take me anywhere near to where I expected to go, but the quirky and odd characters and events did.

[Natty Peterkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the general tone of the book a little too self-consciously cynical, kind of like a teenager trying really hard to look like they're not trying. The overall feeling I interpreted from Coupland with this writing style was one of narcissism and maybe as a result of that a kind of mean outlook that seemed to lack compassion. However, there are also moments of wonder and kindness that quite noticeably "switch" the narrative's personality from time to time, and these create an interesting effect of depth – it comes across as a conflict within the writer, rather than the story he is telling but I could be wrong, it may also be a critical portrayal of the cynicism he ironically replicates?

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel kept me laughing during medical troubles, not an easy thing to do. It's a fast, funny, smart look at the losers side of Hollywood, with mystery and a bit of romance. There are lovely lines like these:

"Ivan was immaculately dressed and his skin had the shine of eight hours of drugless sleep. John's face looked like a floor at the end of a cocktail party."

[Eline · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5*

[Marijn Woudstra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the firts 3/4, the ending was a bit quick

[Joe Mallabone · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF about halfway through, I like Mr Coupland but I couldn’t get into this

[Ellie Wakefield · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much fun!! I really like Coupland’s writing and how he structures his books, the plot was so perfectly woven together with so many little details falling into place at the end.

[Imogen · Rating 1 out of 5]

this is most likely the worst book i will ever read
why would you make this
what

[Julia Edmiston · Rating 1 out of 5]

awful. i don’t see how anyone could follow or understand this. the timeline jumped back and forth so many times i had no idea what i was reading most of the time. seems like coupland couldn’t think of a good enough story so he jumbled it up to try and make it interesting but ended up with the most confusing story of all time. Don’t waste your time y’all.

[Marti · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Miss Wyoming" is a light and fun read, but it still manages to touch on a few serious themes: loneliness and love, detachment and connectedness, identity and rebirth. In the first part of the book, the narrator jumps back and forth in time describing a myriad of crazy characters in unbelievable situations. At first, I didn't really get drawn into the book as I like to when reading a book like this one. Instead, I simply read one chapter at a time and then put the book down. And then when I picked up the book again, it was difficult to figure out what was going on. I didn't really care about the characters and I wasn't that interested in the plot. However, near the end of the book, the myriad of characters and plots converge into a unified, compelling, uplifting (and even a bit inspirational) story. I absolutely love the end of the book!

The main theme of the book (or at least the one that spoke to me the most) is the idea of rebirth ala the phoenix (destroying or erasing one's current identity in some way and creating a new one by rising from the ashes). Most of the main characters (Susan--the beauty queen, John--the producer who falls in love with Susan, Eugene--former weatherman/pageant judge and Susan's lover, Randy Hexum--Susan's fan who raises her child, Dreama--Susan's best friend) experience this cyclical rebirth. They live multiple lives and have multiple identities (sometimes even changing their names) throughout their lifetimes. It is important to note that the characters in Miss Wyoming choose to be reborn and to take on these new identities. They choose the paths that they take, and they choose the lives that they lead in a very active and self-directed way. I think the last paragraph is beautiful and says it best, "John felt that he and everybody in the New World was a part of a mixed curse and blessing from God, that they were a race of strangers, perpetually casting themselves into new fires, yearning to burn, yearning to rise from the charcoal, always newer, always believing that whatever came to them next would mercifully erase the creatures they'd already become as they crawled along the plastic radiant way."

[Hannah Eiseman-Renyard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pop Culture Trash Coupland Rather than Indie Kid Coupland


Those who know and love his more indie-kid classics such as Generation X or JPod may be a little disappointed as there's no interesting footnotes, slogans or other playing with the format here. This is a straight-up novel. A fun, post-modernly trashy one, more like Coupland's All Families Are Psychotic.

I enjoyed this one a lot, but found it occasionally embarrassed my snob credentials as impossibility built upon improbability until there was almost something of a romance novel or fairy tale about it.

That said - Coupland is one shrewd observer, so even when he's writing about a former child star who happens to be the only survivor of a plane crash - there's always something snide and witty going on under the surface.

My personal favourite is the coining of the term 'white collar subversion' - as people take great time and calculation to disrupt and mess with their own offices. A bit of a recurring theme with Coupland, but a good one nonetheless.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may be my favourite Douglas Coupland novel.

Quirky characters interacting within the Hollywood environment break away from the constrictions of their scripted life and explore what life is really about.

A former child beauty-pageant contender, former child star and current "where are they now" celebrity Susan Colgate managed to disconnect from her controlling mother, but still struggles to make her own way in the world. Only upon surviving an airline crash, does she slip into a different life.

Big-time producer John Johnson has succeeded in the business, but not in his life. During a stint in rehab he hears a voice offering a solution. The voice belongs to Susan Colgate.

When the two meet during a luncheon magic happens. Their lives become entangled in the most marvelous fashion while glimpses of their intriguing pasts give depth to their characters.

Greatly entertaining with many simple truths revealed.

[Jpmist · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate, hate, hate, books that jump back and forth in time sequence amid multiple characters. I like a flow to my reading such that I don't have to go "wait a minute, who'se this guy, was this before this other thing happened" at the beginning of every chapter. Too much work to keep context of what happened in what order to who. Pain in the ass.

I was literally half way thru the book before I metaphorically threw it across the room in disgust. The shame is that I really liked Coupland's writing intra-chapter, but he's being too damn cute to hopscotch from the middle to the beginning and back for no apparent reason or affect.

[Gregg Koskela · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was our book group read, and my first Coupland book. It will be my last. Symbolism as subtle as a truck driving through a cardboard cut out, tortured analogies...I couldn't wait to be done. It reminds me of when semi-smart people have had a little too much to drink and think they are making profound statements about the nature of the world. Its one redeeming factor was the way he structured the telling of the story, weaving together the various layers well near the end. But I'd never be persuaded to read one of his books again.

[Shawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A love story for broken people, it tells the story of a former child star and a movie producer forming a bond over mysterious pasts. Told in alternating points of view, it jumps from the past to the present as it tells about their pasts and how it brought them together.

The characters are wonderfully written and the story-telling superb. This could be classified a "Hollywood romance," but that would be selling it so short. It's just two people coming to realize that they have not been in the driver seats of their lives up until this point.

It's a very wonderful and surreal story.

[N · Rating 2 out of 5]

A funny, relentlessly and somewhat repetitive and dated story of a washed-up producer trying to redeem his midlife crisis and mistakes by somehow rescuing a C-list former child star, Former Miss Wyoming Susan Colgate from exploitation and obscurity. Mr. Coupland captures the grit and dark side of glamor and Hollywood well; but the subplots fall flat.

[Devon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book the first few times I read it. Then I went back to it a few years later and liked it less, then reread it again a few years later and liked it even less, so I'm definitely not going to read it ever again in case I find that I actually hate it. Because that first time I read it, it was just perfect. But I don't remember why.

[Nate D · Rating 2 out of 5]

Even at the time, when I believed I liked Douglas Coupland, I found this one to be sort of Palahniuk-lite: same themes and structure as Invisible Monsters without the visceral force or the sheer insanity of its set pieces.

[Patrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I listened to this on tape walking to and from the train, my mind kept wandering off. A man and a woman fall in love under extremely coincidental circumstances.

[Kathryn Rosenberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lame, especially for Coupland. Artificially complicated structure disguises a fairly prosaic plot.

[Robert Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

Douglas Coupland seems to be all about awareness - his own and that of the masses. I think I would like to spend some time with him if he was nice. I suspect that he is not as nice as his books. There seems to be a hard edge to him. I can imagine him being impatient and uncompromising with the people and flies around him. That said, he writes interesting books that provoke both thought and envy in me. This one is no different.

Miss Wyoming seems to be all about a girl who wants things but those things are not the same things as the people around her want for her. I mean, sure, there is some overlap in that her love affair with John seems to be about an aligning of interests and actually when I think about it, she seems to have the same alignment with her other lovers in this book, apart from Chris, but he's not really her lover, he's just her husband.

This book in general seems to be mostly about wanting what you want and getting something else (something that is a combination of what you want and what other people around you want). Then again, isn't that what life is about? You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might just find that you get what you need (yeah, that's from a Rolling Stones song).

I think that there should be more focus on needs rather than wants (like, in authors' minds, characters' minds and in fiction in general) because we would have a healthier society with healthier people in healthier bodies if this were so. Just my opinion.

Read this book if you are in awe of Douglas Coupland's style, verve, wit and imagination. Avoid it if you're either happy with your world or you're strong enough to withstand the tide of someone else's take on the world.

[Jeremy Walton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good moments, but not one of his best
I'm a great admirer of Douglas Coupland's gifts: his memorable use of simile, his empathy with his characters, and his gift for revealing love and beauty in the most unpromising of locations. Here, he turns his eye to a satirical treatment of fame, beauty contests, making movies and fandom with the tale of washed-out film director John Johnson's pursuit of ex-child beauty queen / soap opera star Susan Colgate. This takes quite a while (the whole book, even) because there's a lot of doubling back to show you how they became the damaged people they are. Some of this exposition is done quite explicitly (including toe-curling scenes of each of them eating out of garbage cans), but it's all done - I think - to reinforce the redemption that comes into their lives with the discovery of true love.

Unfortunately, by the time that turned up, I could feel my attention wandering (at one point, I realized that I was unsure about the difference between some of the minor characters, which isn't a good sign). To be fair, there are some good moments: Coupland gives you an insight into the life of the semi-famous that's valuable in a celebrity-obsessed culture, and he hasn't lost his gift for turning a phrase: for example, at one point, Susan highlights the Catholic guilt of her would-be (married) lover with "Excuse *me*, Larry. Pope on line three", which made me smile. This gift allows him to deftly summarise a setting with just a few words, e.g. (p183) "They were breakfasting in the Alpine Room of the Denver Marriott. It was seven-fifteen Tuesday morning, at an orientation meeting and 'Prayer Wake-Up with Turkey Sausage - Turkey, the Low-fat Pork Substitute'".

Originally reviewed 16 April 2010