Polaroids from the Dead - Hardcover

Douglas Coupland

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060391499 ISBN 13: 9780060391492

Publisher: HarperCollins/ Regan Books, 1996

Synopsis

Douglas Coupland takes his literary talent in a new direction with this collection of takes on life and death in North America - from his sweeping portrait of Grateful Dead culture to the deaths of Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain and the middle class.
Coupland has assembled a wide variety of stories and personal "postcards" about the pivotal people and places that have defined our modern lives. Polaroids from the Dead is a skillful combination of stories, fact and fiction - keen outtakes on life in the late twentieth century, exploring the recent past and a society obsessed with celebrity, crime and death. Princess Diana, Nicole Brown Simpson and Madonna are but some of the people scrutinized herein.
By turns hugely funny, savagely ironic and poignantly searching, this collection has appeal for everyone cognizant of the first half of this decade and looking for navigation in the second.

About this title

Review

"What is admirable about this new book....is that he has chosen not to repeat the formula of his earlier commercial success....He bravely commits himself to material that is rich and deeply felt.""--New York Times"

From the Back Cover

Here we are, over half-way through them, but no-one seems to have a clear sense of what defines the 1990s; what are these years for, what against? Who better to consult than that anatomist of the sound-bite era, that taxonomist of moods, icons, jargon and styles, Douglas Coupland, author of 'Microserfs' and 'Generation X'. Let him explain his intention for this book:

'This book – comprised of both fiction and non-fiction – explores the world that existed in the early 1990s, back when the decade was young and had yet to locate its own texture. In 1990, society seemed to be living in a 1980s hangover and was unclear in its direction. People seemed unsure that the 1990s were even going to be capable of generating their own mood. Now I read these pieces over, and it's as though I've opened a kitchen drawer and found a Kleenex box full of already nostalgic Polaroid snapshots and postcards. I hope the photographic imagery in the book will help accentuate this feeling of riffling through evocative old missives. I find myself thinking wistfully of that place in time, say, not three years ago, when teenage bedrooms again sprouted daisy stickers and when Grunge ruled the catwalks. On another level, I think of when the imperative to become "wired" hadn't yet so much filled the world's workforce with dark dreams of low-tech paranoia and security-free obsolescence. It's been a busy half-decade.'

Like all his writing, these 'Polaroids from the Dead' are unsettlingly perceptive, resoundingly right and characteristically Coupland – snapshots from the history of the future, to be cherished here and now by the privileged few.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins/ Regan Books
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060391499
• ISBN 13: 9780060391492
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 198