Product Description

Roger is a middle-aged and divorced 'aisles associate' at a Staples outlet. His co-worker Bethany is facing fifty more years of shelving Post-it notes. Then Bethany discovers Roger's notebook and finds that he's writing diary entries pretending to be her - and weirdly, he's getting it right. Bethany and Roger strike up a secret correspondence, and as it unfolds so too do the characters of Roger's work-in-progress, Glove Pond, a Cheever-era novella gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #62189 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 275 pages

Review
'Funny, touching and immensely enjoyable' Daily Express 'Classic Coupland' Independent 'A tender and hopeful story that shows how, with friendship and the occasional little act of rebellion, there can still be laughter after tragedy' Daily Mail 'He is a brilliant social commentator and a wit for our time' TLS

The Times
Funny; genuinely, embarrass-yourself-on-a-plane funny. The Gum Thief sometimes reads like a more cleverly executed version of Breakfast of Champions.

Daily Mail
A tender and hopeful story that shows how, with friendship and the occasional little act of rebellion, there can still be laughter after tragedy.

Customer Reviews

Familiar tone of voice, familiar post-modern observations
Coupland's voice is instantly recognisable and he has a set of themes he has made is own. And The Gum Thief is representative of both. He doesn't extends his range (as he did in Eleanor Rigby and Hey Nostradamus!) but neither does he rehash earlier successes (J-Pod). There are many beautiful observations here, and moments of genuine warmth. There are also moments of indulgence, issues in pacing, a wearying sense of deja vu and ultimately, the whole doesn't really add up to very much. If you like Coupland, you will still like him at the end of The Gum Thief, but I can't help feeling this is a novel written between other, hopefully more ambitious projects.

A gentle tale of social dislocation
This book presents a snapshot into the lives of different people who all work together - it is perhaps the only thing they have in common. However, gradually, they develop some ties with each other, but because of the dislocation generated by the socio-economic conditions in which they live, the friendships they develop don't really feel tangible. I felt that this was the real strength of the book, that it could evoke a sense of dislocation and detachment. This is a well-written, compassionate and gentle tale.

Falling between two stools...
Not being a fan of Coupland, I'm not infected by any idea of how high on the Coupland league this would rate. Viewed in isolation, this seems to be a middling effort. On the one hand, there are some nice observations, a sharp turn of phrase, and an initially-enjoyable spoof novel. None of the characters in the main story grates, and it pops along with a reasonable pace.

On the other hand, at no stage is this laugh-out-loud funny, and the overall tone and direction starts to get tiring about halfway through. The excruciating nature of the failed novel starts to pall fairly quickly, and the characters start to meander. Towards the end of the book, it almost starts to get morose, as it attempts to get serious. It is not sufficiently well written for an ending of genuine pathos, but by then Coupland appears to have given up trying to be arch and witty.

Overall, I'm not sure Coupland knew what he was really trying to do with this book. There is not enough acute observation and depth to be a genuinely human, or humane, piece of work. However, it is not out-and-out funny, provoking a few smirks rather than guffaws, and is not as wacky or as smart as it would like to think it is.

This wouldn't make me want to rush out and buy the entire back-catalogue. But it wouldn't totally put me off, either. Neither one thing nor another.