Last night my wife and I stopped at the Half Price Bookstore in Mesquite. She was wanting to buy a gift for a friend. While she was shopping I wandered over to the fiction section. I normally gravitate to my three favorite living authors Douglas Coupland, Dave Eggers and David Mitchell.
I pulled out a hardback copy of one of Coupland's books, jPod. It's one of the few of his works I haven't read although it's been on my wish list for awhile. When I opened the cover I was stunned to find what appeared to be his signature in the front cover. It was addressed to "Sam of Austin." The inside cover even had a post-it note with the name Sam on it. By all appearances it looked like the typical situation where a writer is given a stack of books to sign to specific people. Somehow or another this book had made its way from Austin to Dallas.
I was super excited. Here was a signed edition of a book by one of my favorite authors. Half Price Books had it priced at $7.99. I hadn't planned on buying any books that night but I got that one quick. When we got home I immediately went online to find photos of Coupland's signature. Sure enough it looked exactly like the dozens I found via Google. It had his distinguishing X mark as well.
You see, Douglas Coupland is one of the most important post-modern novelists of the late 20th and 21st century. He is the man who coined the term "Generation X" which is often applied to those of us born in the mid 1960's through the mid 1970's. Generation X, his first novel, became a major benchmark in observations of our particular little subset of society. GenX was a satirical reaction against the over labelization of culture.
Coupland, a Canadian, has also become world renowned as an modern artist. His books and artwork are amazing. He's been one of my touchstone authors since at least 1992 when I was first exposed to his work.
And by sheer dumb coincidence I have come into a signed edition of one of his works. I asked my wife how could Sam have let this out of his possession? She said maybe Sam got a divorce and his ex pawned the book to Half Price or maybe Sam died, who knows? I whispered "Sam's dead." I just wanted to buy the book and get out of there before Half Price Books realized what they had missed.
