Hey Nostradamus!: Douglas Coupland

The story of one family piecing itself back together after a tragic highschool shooting, Hey Nostradamus! is Douglas Coupland’s most soulful, piercing and searching novel yet.
Pregnant and secretly married, Cheryl Anway scribbles her last will and testament – and erie premonition – on a school binder shortly before a rampaging trio of misfit classmates gun her down in a high school cafeteria. Overrun with paranoia, teenage angst and religious zeal in the ensuing massacre`s wake, this sleepy Vancouver neighbourhood declares its saints, brands its demons and finally moves on.

But for a handful of people still reeling from that horrific day, life remains perpetually derailed. Four dramatically different characters tell their stories in their own words: Cheryl, who calmly narrates her own death; Jason, the boy no one knew was her husband, still marooned ten years later by his loss; Heather, the woman trying to love the shattered Jason; and Jason`s father Reg, a cruelly religious man no one suspects is still worth loving. Each wrestles with God, self-defeat and a crippling inability to hold on to those they love.

Coupland`s most surprising and soulful novel yet, rich with his trademark cultural acuity and dark humour, Hey Nostradamus! ties themes of alienation, violence and misguided faith into a fateful and unforgettable knot from which four people must untangle their lives.