Starred review from February 10, 2014
Raymond Gunt, the narrator of Coupland’s (Generation A) latest, is an unemployed cameraman and a horrible human being. He goes begging to his ex-wife Fiona, owner of a West London casting agency. Fi offers him work on the American reality program Survival, and despite his suspicion that she’s just trying to embarrass him, Raymond accepts, after which he recruits local homeless man Neal to be his assistant/slave for the shoot. So begins Raymond’s vile, tirade-laced adventure to Kiribati, a remote island in the Pacific and the location of the shoot. He is a fabulous monster, with nothing and no one safe from his vitriol. Raymond torments the obese, faces multiple incarcerations, makes leering advances at every woman crossing his path, and plays a role in a potentially globe-threatening nuclear event—and all this before even reaching the island. Coupland skewers a pop world’s growing insensibilities, and his protagonist is a charming villain whom readers will likely root for, even as he’s insulting them.