Like I Care

Welcome to family life in 21st century Vancouver! Arnold is a struggling real estate agent who's going through a divorce. Linda, Arnold's ex, is inordinately fond of G&T's and worships Princess Diana. Their daughter, Christiana, is trying to break into modelling, but her head shots have already been morphed, packaged, and up-loaded without her consent—she's now the goddess of globalization. Lawrence, their neighbor, is a consultant who specializes in writing pointless mission statements. He's plotting an affair with a young woman who belongs to a cannibal cult led by a chef who has created the perfect modern cuisine—eating the corrupt. Lawrence's step-son, Thomas, has dropped out of college and come adrift; his only interests are cult movies and soap operas. Then there's Emily, a scooter-riding Ultra-chick who models her life on the Yé-Yé girls of the swingin' sixties, and Katelyn, who is coming to terms with the realization that her waitressing gig may be her destiny and not just a temporary job. They're all about to be transformed through the influence of legendary new-age financier Mitchell Morphus. Jumping on the Morphus bandwagon, Arnold finds himself in Taiwan just in time for the Communist invasion, while Lawrence loses his shirt—literally and figuratively—and Thomas becomes the protégé of the sinister financier and short-sells the only commodity that really matters in the modern world—coolness. Fear, uncertainty, disinformation—that's the holy trinity of the 21st Century, and Arnold and his friends are living it to the hilt.

"A fast moving (and fast reading!) romp of a novel, and it does a great job of keeping lots of balls in the air as it follows a large cast of connected characters of different ages over the course of a couple of days in (mostly) Vancouver. Some of the plotlines are more absurd and active than others, which was fun, but what really propels the novel is the overdriven language of technology, slang, abbreviation, and late (post?) postmodernity. It's a cracklingly vivid portrait of an exaggerated time and place, of strained families and young people struggling to find a direction…a smart, funny, and enjoyable depiction of the quotidian impacts of rapid technological change..."—Steve Himmer, Necessary Fiction.