Reading: "All Families Are Psychotic"

The novel, entitled "All Families Are Psychotic", is the seventh novel by Douglas Coupland, and it was published in 2001. As the title suggests, this novel is a fantastic story of the dysfunctional Drummond family from Vancouver, where after many years of removal the members of this family will be reunited. The reason for the reunion is the huge success of daughter Sarah, who despite her disability caused by the administration of thalidomide to her mother during pregnancy, works at NASA and was to be "launched" into space as a cosmonaut!

 

A disability as severe as in the case of Sarah, who was born without an arm, we realize that it has adverse psychosomatic and emotional consequences for the person herself, especially when she knows that her life would be very different if her mother had not taken thalidomide. The cause of her disability is specific, in the sense that it has a name, also someone is responsible for her condition. The psychological state of people who have caused their own disability is very different, as they put the blame on themselves, than the case of people like Sarah who know that they are not responsible for their disability, as they focus their criticism on their situation to others and this can affect in a very negative way their relationship with beloved or very close people and keen to them, such as the mother or even the father. In fact, when there are siblings in the family, the comparison is more direct and the question that the sufferer must manage is: "why me?". Coupland creates a heroine who, despite her problem, does not give up, but is focused on her science, holds a doctorate and is ready for the most important moment in her career.

 

Coupland, in addition to the sensitive issue of disability, raises another issue that also affects the psychosomatic condition of the individual, and even more back then, the time the book was written where the treatment was not as successful as today. There are three characters with AIDS, mother Janet and her son Wade, as well as Nicky, father Ted's second wife, who had sex with Wade at an airport without knowing he was her legally adopted son. When Ted discovers that there was an "incestuous" encounter, he causes a major incident. In general, Ted is an abusive figure towards his sons, with whom he was always indignant, while towards his daughter he maintains an attitude of "worship" and unlimited sympathy since childhood. Ted is an alcoholic and therefore tyrannical and violent and sees his wife Nicki as a trophy.

We should not forget to note that a disease such as AIDS is not easily manageable, as the person struggles for a long period of time and in some cases it takes years until s/he manages to accept the special condition in which s/he is now and also gradually emerge issues that at first glance are not visible or conspicuous such as: "who would fall in love with a person with AIDS?" Fortunately, for Wade in a support group for people with infectious diseases, he met Beth, who as a former drug addict thought she had AIDS, which was not the case and eventually married her.

 

Brian, on the other hand, is the "stupid" child of the family, who always gets into troubles and is always entangled. Brian is in a relationship with Shw, whose parents had allowed her to choose her name at the age of 16, and because she hated vowels, she chose to call her that way. She became pregnant by Brian and is now in the dilemma of having an abortion or selling her child?

 

Things get even more complicated in this novel, especially from the point where Norm, Wade's occasional employer, is introduced to the plot. Norm is in possession of Lady Di's last letter and has found a buyer from the Bahamas, Florian, who is unscrupulous in getting what he wants. Coupland is a master at creating ruthless, uncivilized and without a trace of education characters, as well as stories set in mysterious or “bizarre” areas of America, such as Daytona Beach.

 

In this novel of Coupland, we find that the characters he has constructed meet one another under the most unusual coincidences, but deep down everyone is looking for truth and happiness. Coupland, describing characters that cover the spectrum of life of two generations of adults, makes some very apt remarks about life in general, where every action has its consequences, and nothing is so simple or so easy. Middle-aged Janet, evaluating her past, wonders what she has accomplished in her life so far, trying, albeit belatedly, to get out of her microcosm and spread her wings, while her children notice that they are unhappy anyway, they are in a dialogue with their identities, feeling that they have submitted to the roles imposed on them by society. The characters, then, deal with existential issues such as illness, death, addiction, bad family relationships, but also the complexity and wickedness of the world around them.

Τhe reader will surely look back on his/her own family, on whether and to what extent s/he is close or far from the other members, if there has been so much distance and alienation that something extraordinary will have to happen to them so as to bring them close again. Eventually, the reader will wonder about what a family is and how one member's expectations for the other shape the choices and route of each individual, but also all together, as a whole or a system, just like the system of communicating vessels. Eventually, even if each and every member has taken a different path, even when the family seems to have dispersed, there will always be thoughts of each other to fill in any gaps. In the end, more or less, with or without exaggeration, is it possible our family to be also psychotic?

 

Douglas Coupland. (2001). All Families Are Psychotic. Pilgrim Reader Books.

 

Kouravanas Nicholas- Papadopoulou Eleni, Psychologist,  MSc.