Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland's new novel is Worst. Person. Ever.

From Coupland's Q & A with Lindsay Baker at the Observer:

Worst. Person. Ever. has as its protagonist the incredibly foul-mouthed, misanthropic and genuinely shocking Raymond Gunt. Who or what inspired him and was he a liberating character to write?

The seed of Raymond was a cameraman who was on a shoot I was doing in California in the early 1990s. He was this British, walking Tourette's‑y car crash – I couldn't stop looking – and I filed him away for a rainy day. Was Raymond liberating to write? Yes and no – I'm pretty free inside my head – but Raymond really did shock me at times. He's truly inventive.

Raymond and his sidekick, Neal, get embroiled in a series of increasingly bizarre events. How did the plot unfold in your mind?

I read an interview with the Coen brothers once. When they write a script they do it one page at a time – each must create a dilemma that the other has to solve. With Worst. Person. Ever. I knew where it started and where it had to end, but I threw Raymond as many curveballs as I could along the way. He's like the coyote in the Road Runner cartoons.

Have you ever had any Raymond Gunt moments in your life?

The...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue