Book Tamers| book reviews

Most certainly, the title of this novel is catchy for those who, even though they love their families, they sigh in amused exasperation when they are called for a family reunion. And yes, the novel will answer all expectations!
The Drummonds are not a typical family (which family is, anyway?) and there is no actual need for a certain thread of action when they get together.
Janet (the matriarchal figure that dominates the novel) was left by her husband, gets infected, in a terrible accident, with AIDS by her own son and lives with the guilt of having a daughter deprived of one arm. Ted, the alcoholic and degenerated father, leaves his wife and family for a trophy-woman. Wade, the elder son, a wanderer smuggler, with AIDS, decides to have a family with devout Beth. Sarah, the family’s hero, born without one hand, prepares to launch in space. Bryan is the suicide who militates against globalization, and future father of a child who will be sold by his anarchist girlfriend, Shw.

Starting with the first pages, Coupland gathers a whole pleiad of events that sets the novel as an explosion of absurd. We go through different ages of the family’s history and find out almost simultaneously that: Wade slept with his step mother, Ted tried to shoot his wife but the bullet stuck into one of the kids and Bryan is convinced that Shw wants to get rid of the baby inside her.
Janet is probably the one character towards whom we have sympathy and attachment. Dedicated traditionalist wife, being jilted by her husband, truly finds herself and starts living her own life. HIV infection and continuous struggle against AIDS don’t tear her apart; in fact this is a pretty good reason for her to fight back even more strongly. Her passion for the internet, the understanding she shows for each of her children, the patience in listening everyone around her, transform Janet into one of the most complex and most loved Drummond member.
Illness is a theme described all along the novel, from total abandon to serene acceptance. AIDS is a subject everyone talks about freely, maybe in a dark tone sometimes. If at first, disease as a miracle is perceived only as a metaphor, the novel’s denouement transforms it into an incredible reality.
In All Families are Psychotic, Coupland proves to be an incontestable master of relaxed and natural dialogues, of emotional descriptions and cruel realism, sprinkling the text with new and delightful types of metaphors, in the most unexpected places.
His writing conquers the reader in reading the novel as he wants it, in his own rhythm, alternating skillfully the crazy action with quiet and loving times.

Written by Ana-Maria