Hey Nostradamus!
By Douglas Coupland
Random House
HC, 256 pg. US$21.95/C$34.95
ISBN: 0-6793-1269-2

Douglas Coupland grows up

By Steven Martinovich
web posted August 4, 2003

Like the generation that he defined with his novel Generation X
Douglas Coupland is getting older. At a certain age -- usually in
third decade of our lives -- self absorption gives way to more
profound concerns. For Coupland it seems satire has been
replaced by a desire for a deeper examination of human life. That
is clearly evident in his seventh novel Hey Nostradamus! where
he eschews his standard formula of dry, cutting and hip humor in
favor of a deeply spiritual story.

Hey Nostradamus! is four stories united by a single tragic thread.
It opens with a Columbine High School-style attack by three
students at a fictional Vancouver high school in 1988, seen from
the perspectives of students Cheryl and Jason. The two were
secretly married weeks earlier in Las Vegas and that very
morning Cheryl reveals to Jason that she is pregnant. A few short
hours later Cheryl lies dead in Jason's arms in the school's
lunchroom after the shooters have been killed by their fellow
students. It is a remarkably powerful chapter narrated by the
dead Cheryl, one that sees her frequently ponder her place in the
afterlife and directly address universal questions in the form of
letters and prayers to God.

Jason is initially hailed a hero for killing one of the shooters but
soon after is suspected by some to have been involved. He
eventually reappears as a shattered adult a decade later unable
to move past the events of that day. He begins a relationship with
Heather, a court reporter, but disappears soon after in
mysterious circumstances. She spends fruitless months searching
for him, even resorting to employing the services of a psychic
who may be more than she appears. The story then shifts to Reg,
Jason's father, a man whose inflexible and cruel religious beliefs
leads him to accuse Jason of murder the day of the shootings and
eventually alienates him from everyone he loves.

Hey Nostradamus! sees Coupland make some interesting
decisions in telling his story. Notably he does not explore the
motivations of why the three students went on their killing spree,
an odd move considering that the novel does deal with the
question of evil. Nor does Coupland provide many answers for
the questions that his novel raises. That perhaps is not surprising
since answering the question of what higher purpose our lives
have is one that we must answer individually.

Coupland's dislike of religion is evident throughout Hey
Nostradamus! A Christian youth group comes across like the
Hitler Youth in their zeal to maintain the purity of its members
and Reg uses his religious fervor as a weapon against those he
deems unworthy of salvation. Despite that, Hey Nostradamus! is
a deeply spiritual novel that roughly utilizes Christian archetypes
-- from Jason's messianic role in helping to stop the school
shootings, in a sense sacrificing himself for others, to Reg's
playing the part of a tragic yet ultimately repentant Judas -- to tell
its character's stories.
 
Hey Nostradamus! is ultimately an uneven work in the manner of
an author unused to using new tools to tell a story. It opens
powerfully with Cheryl narrating her death but begins to stumble
at the end of Jason's story, especially with a silly plot twist
involving his sister-in-law, falling apart with Heather's ineffectual
and unlikely story before recovering with Reg's perspective. Yet
despite that Hey Nostradamus! is still a moving work is designed
to provoke readers in asking themselves questions about family,
spiritual life and the links that tie our lives together. Coupland and
his flock haven't given up on humor but eventually everyone
grows up.

Steven Martinovich is a freelance writer in Sudbury, Ontario.

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