Player One

Player One

Written by: Coupland, Douglas

In his 2010 CBC Massey Lectures acclaimed novelist and visual artist Douglas Coupland explores the modern crises of time, human identity, society, religion and macroeconomics and the afterlife in the form of a novel, a 5-hour story set in an airport cocktail lounge during a global disaster.

Five disparate people are trapped inside: Karen, a single mother waiting for her online date; Rick, the down-on-his-luck airport lounge bartender; Luke, a pastor on the run; Rachel, a cool Hitchcock blonde incapable of true human contact; and finally a mysterious voice known as Player One. Slowly, each reveals the truth about themselves while the world as they know it comes to an end.

The book asks as many questions as it answers, and readers will leave the story with no doubt that we are in a new phase of existence as a species -- and that there is no turning back.

In his 2010 CBC Massey Lectures acclaimed novelist and visual artist Douglas Coupland explores the modern crises of time, human identity, society, religion and macroeconomics and the afterlife in the form of a novel, a 5-hour story set in an airport cocktail lounge during a global disaster.

Five disparate people are trapped inside: Karen, a single mother waiting for her online date; Rick, the down-on-his-luck airport lounge bartender; Luke, a pastor on the run; Rachel, a cool Hitchcock blonde incapable of true human contact; and finally a mysterious voice known as Player One. Slowly, each reveals the truth about themselves while the world as they know it comes to an end.

The book asks as many questions as it answers, and readers will leave the story with no doubt that we are in a new phase of existence as a species -- and that there is no turning back.

Published By House of Anansi Press Inc — Sep 25, 2010
Specifications 256 pages | 5 in x 8 in
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Excerpt
Written By

DOUGLAS COUPLAND is a writer, visual artist and designer. He has published fourteen novels, three collections of short stories, and eight nonfiction books; has written and performed for England’s Royal Shakespeare Company; and is a columnist for the Financial Times and a frequent contributor to the New York Times. In 2015 and 2016 Coupland was artist in residence at the Paris Google Cultural Institute. In May 2018 his exhibition on ecology, Vortex, opened at the Vancouver Aquarium. Coupland is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy, an Officer of the Order of Canada, an Officer of the Order of British Columbia, a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence.

Written By

DOUGLAS COUPLAND is a writer, visual artist and designer. He has published fourteen novels, three collections of short stories, and eight nonfiction books; has written and performed for England’s Royal Shakespeare Company; and is a columnist for the Financial Times and a frequent contributor to the New York Times. In 2015 and 2016 Coupland was artist in residence at the Paris Google Cultural Institute. In May 2018 his exhibition on ecology, Vortex, opened at the Vancouver Aquarium. Coupland is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy, an Officer of the Order of Canada, an Officer of the Order of British Columbia, a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence.

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“The way Coupland moulds his fiction from the throwaway debris of North American popular culture is quite brilliant...” —The Guardian

“As always with Coupland, the ideas come thick and fast, they're quirky, often funny and frequently profound...” —Daily Mail

“packed full of ideas and always a joy to follow...” —Big Issue Scotland

“Douglas Coupland takes readers on a captivating ride...” —Winnipeg Free Press

“...there is an odd tenderness to this novel, and it has to do with recapturing the sense of life as a story in a world of information overload and non-linear narratives.” —The Guardian

“...this is a superior read for those who want the latest thoughts from a nimble, complex author who thinks about this kind of stuff all the time...” —The Tampa Tribune

“"...an ease with the language of modernity that contemporary Great North American Novelists should envy... his Eeyorish pessimism, left-field humour and admirable ability to enunciate all of our halfformed thoughts raise this from a sterile dissertation on why modern life is rubbish into the realms of really great fiction."” —The Independent

“"...an ease with the language of modernity that contemporary Great North American Novelists should envy... his Eeyorish pessimism, left-field humour and admirable ability to enunciate all of our halfformed thoughts raise this from a sterile dissertation on why modern life is rubbish into the realms of really great fiction."” —The Independent