The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland

The first episode of jPod will be airing on the CBC tomorrow.  So, during my Christmas holidays I decided to go back and read Coupland’s latest novel, The Gum Thief.
I usually jump in bed 15 minutes to an hour before I want to actually sleep. I spend that first chunk of time reading whatever is currently on my to-read list. The second chunk of time I use to just relax myself and jot down notes of whatever is currently on my mind.

I generally stay away from technical reading before bed. I get tons of Left-Brain stimulation during the day so I try to read something more Right-Brain at this point in time.

For myself at least, Coupland books are very Left-Brain. There are little details that I just pick at over and over. If I’m reading before bed, sometimes I just fall asleep.

I had made a couple attempts previously to get through this novel and I wasn’t able to get all the way through. The Gum Thief takes place in Vancouver for the most part and focuses on two Staples employees. Roger is a divorced man in his mid-forties. Bethany is a goth girl in her mid-twenties.

The novel is written from the first-person viewpoint. Sometimes it is written from the viewpoint of Roger and sometimes from Bethany’s viewpoint. Sometimes it is written from Roger’s viewpoint pretending to be Bethany.

All of this correspondence takes place in letters that they write each other. Sometimes Bethany is writing in Roger’s journal. At times it is a letter that has been FedEx’d from Europe. At times it is a letter that Bethany’s mother leaves for Roger at his home along with a care package.

Roger is an aspiring novelist. Sometimes the viewpoint shifts to the characters in his novel, Glove Pond. At one point the novel shifts to the viewpoint of a novel named, Love in the Age of Office Superstores.

This is a novel written by a character named Kyle in Glove Pond. Glove Pond is the novel that Roger is currently writing. And Roger is a character in the novel The Gum Thief, the book that I’m actually holding in my hand.

It all gets very confusing when you are about 15 minutes from falling asleep.

The novel itself is about the bleak events in our lives. Both Bethany and Roger are surrounded by death. The deaths in their lives have fundamentally changed the way both characters behave. Something as small as stealing a stick of gum can be traced back to these larger events. The way we carry ourselves from day-to-day and our mannerisms are scars left by these larger events.

The novel was very vivid reading for myself. A lot of that has to do with the fact that it takes place in Vancouver.

Early on, Roger has a few drinks at lunch and is trying to kill time and sober up before he heads back to work. He meets a fortune teller on the corner of Seymour and Nelson.

Here I am sitting in my bed in my condo, at the corner of Seymour and Nelson, looking down at the exact place where this novel is supposed to be taking place.