“Babs, you sassy vixen -make me jealous”

I’m a huge fan of Douglas Coupland, and I’d be hard pressed to say which of his books I like the best.  But out of all of them, Girlfriend in a Coma features what I reckon is the best fictional pairing I’ve ever come across.

Hamilton (sarcastic pyromaniac) and Pammie (glamorous ex-supermodel) take a while to get together.  It’s been waiting to happen since they were in high school, but what with growing up and having to become responsible adults; it isn’t until they’re heading into their thirties that they finally hook up.  They’re a perfect example of the hot/cold, yet always on the same wavelength kind of couple.

They both become addicted to heroin. Hamilton has been a recreational drug user since his teens, and Pammieis introduced to the world of narcotics through her rollercoaster stint as a celebrity model. But one day they push it too far and end up overdosing.  They’re taken to hospital, and whilst they’re in the ventilator they start to detox in sync.  Identical muscle spasms. Identical life signals.  But the creepiest thing is that they have the same visions.  Both of them dream of the same surreal, terrible things.  No one can explain it, not even the doctors.

Things start to turn apocalyptic after that point. Soon it’s only a small group of them left alive.  Even after the end of the world, Hamilton and Pammie keep up their drug habit.  They spend their days in car showrooms, counting out stolen diamonds and playacting as the ‘last of the international playboys’.  Some of the best lines in the book come from Hamilton and Pammie at this point (“I’m busy, Babs. I’m hiding my stash of dental-grade cocaine inside Gianni Agnelli’s leather skiboots”).  Then they’re visited by the ghost of their dead high-school friend and given a new lease of life: their minds and bodies wiped free of their addictions.  This time they stay clean, liking the cleanness of their new brains.

Hamilton and Pammie might be messed up for a lot of the book, but the connection between them balances this out a lot of the time. They’re pretentious, blasé, and at times plain ridiculous. But they’re always entertaining, and the fact that they’re so over the top is, more often than not, very endearing.