The Gum Thief: A Novel

“Wildly differing perspectives merge beautifully into one cohesive look at loneliness and despair. Yes, Coupland is dark and cutting about our fluorescent-lit times, but there's also a real underlayer of gratitude here, for the hand that can reach down and unite with you in the darkness. A–.”—Karen Valby, Entertainment Weekly

Douglas Coupland’s ingenious novel—think Clerks meets Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?—is the story of an extraordinary epistolary relationship between Roger and Bethany, two very different, but strangely connected, “aisles associates” at Staples. Watch as their lives unfold alongside Roger’s work-in-progress, the oddly titled Glove Pond. A raucous tale of four academics, two malfunctioning marriages, and one rotten dinner party, Roger’s opus is a Cheever-style novella gone horribly wrong. But as key characters migrate into and out of its pages, Glove Pond becomes an anchor of Roger’s unsettled—and unsettling—life.

Coupland electrifies us on every page of this witty, wise, and unforgettable novel. Love, death, and eternal friendship can all transpire where we least expect them…and even after tragedy seems to have wiped your human slate clean, stories can slowly rebuild you.