Worst. Person. Ever.: Douglas Coupland - Softcover

Coupland, Douglas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099537397 ISBN 13: 9780099537397

Publisher: Windmill Books, 2014

Synopsis

A razor-sharp portrait of a morally bankrupt and gleefully wicked modern man, Worst. Person. Ever. is Douglas Coupland's gloriously filthy, side-splittingly funny and unforgettable novel.

Meet Raymond Gunt. A decent chap who tries to do the right thing. Or, to put it another way, the worst person ever: a foul-mouthed, misanthropic cameraman, trailing creditors, ex-wives and unhappy homeless people in his wake. Men dislike him, women flee from him.

Worst. Person. Ever. is a deeply unworthy book about a dreadful human being with absolutely no redeeming social value. Gunt, in the words of the author, "is a living, walking, talking, hot steaming pile of pure id." He's a B-unit cameraman who enters an amusing downward failure spiral that takes him from London to Los Angeles and then on to an obscure island in the Pacific where a major American TV network is shooting a Survivor-style reality show. Along the way, Gunt suffers multiple comas and unjust imprisonment, is forced to re-enact the ‘Angry Dance’ from the movie Billy Elliot and finds himself at the centre of a nuclear war. We also meet Raymond's upwardly failing sidekick, Neal, as well as Raymond's ex-wife, Fiona, herself ‘an atomic bomb of pain’.

Even though he really puts the ‘anti’ in anti-hero, you may find Raymond Gunt an oddly likeable character.

About this title

Review:

"An outrageous comic riot, delivered as a tear-inducing funny and pitch-black farce ... For every laugh here, there’s a haunting, echoing scream in the distance. The plot is unbridled romp ... It is hard to describe, out of context, quite how funny Coupland’s novel can be." (Sunday Times)

"Worst. Person. Ever. is very much a return to form. It had me laughing out loud on the bus to work." (Irish Times, Books of the Year)

"There are gloriously unquotable remarks and fantastically lurid images on every page. Gunt’s mind is a super-sewer in which it is a pleasure to swim. You can’t help giggling, constantly. Worst. Person. Ever. may be a raging bonfire of inanities but it contains some of Coupland’s finest writing since Shampoo Planet." (Evening Standard)

"There are some clever plot twists and fine comedy set pieces." (Scotland on Sunday)

"A comic riot of a novel." (Sunday Times - Must Reads)

Book Description:

A razor-sharp portrait of a morally bankrupt and gleefully wicked modern man, Worst. Person. Ever. is Douglas Coupland’s gloriously filthy, side-splittingly funny and unforgettable new novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: Windmill Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0099537397
• ISBN 13: 9780099537397
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336