Review

Hey Nostradamus

By Douglas Coupland

Published by HarperCollins

Cheryl, one of the teenaged victims of a high school massacre, secretly married to her boyfriend Jason (and secretly pregnant) tells us posthumously about what happened in the cafeteria that day.

She also ponders whether her brief life was lived to the full and in an honest way. Jason withdraws into himself in the years following Cheryl’s death, preferring the company of his dog to that of the people who thought so badly of him after the massacre.

Heather comes into Jason’s life a decade after the murders, but, when he disappears without trace, is left vainly searching for answers. Jason’s father, Reg, tries to understand his motives for making decisions that have effectively ostracised him from all the relationships he has ever held dear in his life.

One of the triumphs of Hey Nostradamus! is that the book’s pivotal event – the massacre – is not really the pivotal event at all. Coupland is more interested in exploring how faith – in all its guises – can be tested by extreme circumstance: Cheryl’s so-called friends in the Christian Youth Alive! programme are quick to judge Jason in the aftermath of the killings and smug in their own sense of righteousness; Reg, likewise, makes inhumane decisions in the cause of a higher power, but latterly comes to reflect upon the dubious wisdom of this; Heather, despite deep scepticism, seeks reassurance from a psychic in her desperation for answers.

Coupland uses the aftermath of a ghastly situation to show the limitations of faith in the modern world, yet his book is not a diatribe. Rather, it is a soulful examination of the strength that lies within each of us to deal with tragedy and alienation, but it avoids the mawkishness to which this subject could be prone.

Reviewed by James Smith, Booktrust website editor

---