Douglas Coupland, Eleanor Rigby
Perhaps you have read reviews of Douglas Coupland’s new book, Eleanor Rigby. The main character’s name is Liz Dunn. I am named Liz Dunn. Douglas Coupland and I are friends, and have been since 1994 when I met him and worked on Microserfs with him.
When Douglas first told me that he had named a character after me, it was last fall, and I think we were all at Slanted Door. Me, Douglas, Rex Ray, Spike Jonze, and Dave Eggers. And he kept saying, “You just have a really good name! That’s all! You’re not like this character at all! She’s fat and has RED SAUSAGE CURLS! Red sausage curls! No one will think it’s really you!”
Here’s what the New York Times said: “Unfortunately, the narrator of ‘’Eleanor Rigby,'’ Liz Dunn, is one of Coupland’s less successful creations. A walking Cathy cartoon with an apocalyptic chip on her shoulder, Liz is (she reminds us again and again) fat, plain and friendless. She’s never had a relationship, repels her co-workers with snarky wisecracks and possesses special sensitivities like the ability to sense corpses. On the night in 1997 that the Hale-Bopp comet burns through the sky over Vancouver, Liz is at her lowest ebb: preparing to get her wisdom teeth removed, she loads up on sappy videos, self-pity and Jell-O.”
I like Jell-O. And once, in Vancouver, Douglas and I saw Vanilla Sky and I cried at the end. I *think* it was PMS.
The Washington Post wrote: “If you were asked to imagine a lonely person, you might picture a character very similar to Liz Dunn, the protagonist of Douglas Coupland’s latest novel, Eleanor Rigby. Liz has a boring job, a depressing, featureless condo and no friends. She’s overweight, inexperienced with men, pessimistic about the future and spends her days like someone in an airport terminal waiting for a flight to depart, finding ways to make the minutes pass more quickly.”
I wrote Douglas and said:
Instant messaging with a friend who lives in Toronto about the new Douglas Coupland book…
ANDREW: dude what’s the deal with the liz dunn in the new coupland book??
lyziwyg: oh yeah, douglas told me like six months ago
ANDREW: sorry if everyone is asking and it’s annoying or anything
ANDREW: haha yeah, the globe and mail review is like “the liz dunns of this world are fat. the liz dunns of this world get married then get fat and have the same haircut” or whatever
Douglas replied:
Har de har har.
Liz Dunn is the most popular character ever. Your friend is being mischievously decontextualizing! Liz also ends up winning everything in the end 
Mischievously decontextualizing! Point: Douglas Coupland.
January 31st, 2005 at 10:27 am
Jeez, Liz, in denial much? Why would you give a hideous, loathsome character the name of a person you respected? Looks like Doug has you mystified with all his literary “re-contextualizing”
February 2nd, 2005 at 2:46 pm
But the Liz Dunn in the book says that she isn’t like the other
Liz Dunns (like, presumably, the one who’s site this is). Though
her description of the world’s Liz Dunns does not sound much like
our protagonist here.
“Liz Dunns take classes in croissant baking, and would rather chew
on soccer balls than deny their own children muesli. They own one
sex toy, plus one cowboy fantasy that accompanies its use.”
Croissant baking, maybe, but the rest doesn’t sound much like a
woman with her own underwear company.
In any case, Eleanor Rigby is the best Coupland novel in quite
some time. Go and buy it, it’s a quick read.