Hey Nostradamus - Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland follows four characters who were directly related in one way or the other to a tragic event in the past.

Cheryll: the pregnant 17 year old who wrote in her journal what would be her last entry, and her thoughts from the afterlife as well,her own sentiments about the aftermath of the tragedy at the school cafeteria that took her own life, addressing directly all to God.

 

Jason: The secret husband of Cheryl, narrates his own experience from becoming a hero-suspect-and back to a victim of the same tragic event, writing his own memoirs from a van facing the ocean, more than 10 years after Cheryl died, his inability to cope with the sad event, his alienation with his father whom he casually refer to as Reg.

Heather: The woman who love Jason, still feeling trapped from the effect of Jason's tragic past,caught between Jason's inability to move on, Heather told her story in a much different narrative as an outsider from that terrible tragedy, about her chance meeting with Jason, falling in love with him and her desperate attempt to locate Jason when he goes missing.

Reg: Jason's strictly religious father, narrates a short glimpse of his character and offers a rare look at the seemingly distant and hard rock figure, the object of Jason's contempt, partly due to his hypocrite views about religion and those he seems as not worthy of paradise.

'Hey Nostradamus!' is a powerful and funny novel about consequences, after-effects and the human response to tragedy. The book doesn't focus on the killers. their motives nor the cops investigation, as if it only served as a backdrop to the story or theme of the novel which is coping with the aftermath of the tragedy, as told in first hand narrative of the four characters and those around them.

Reading the book is like riding a roller coaster in terms of emotion, from the onset of Cheryl's narrative about her death, life ( which she described as more boring, getting married in Las Vegas, being the subject of gossip among her fellow schoolmates and so on) Up to her own brewing questions about the purpose or reasons of what happened to her that morning in the school cafeteria.

Then to Jason, with a complete revamp settings, 11 years down the line, still coping with Cheryl's death and the eventual separation of his own family, reliving the death of his brother, writing in a profound manner addressed to his Brother's twins?, His own struggles of not really getting a life after that sad event, like a living dead, until the day he disappeared for no apparent reason at all.Jason's story is the most compelling, the longest and often the funniest.

Enter Heather, the only person not directly connected to the shooting tragedy, she tries hard to connect with Reg while at the same time making an effort to locate Jason ( enter psychics or should i say fake psychics who brings messages from make believe characters ).

And Reg the estranged father caught up with his own religious dogmas, strict and questionable moral code, that eventually distant him further from his own family. All said and done, although i was left hanging a bit about the conclusion, there are still a lot to treasure about, a lot of questions abound especially the motives behind the killing, but that will make up an entirely different novel.

Because what Coupland brought here is a story of people, on how they lived, try to cope up, with the usual strands of indifference,grief,loneliness and even guilt.