Binge: Just Kinda Fun

Douglas Coupland's 2021 short story collection (60!) is a hoot to read.  In many ways its structure is reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino's 1994 now-classic movie Pulp Fiction, in that many of the stories touch onto each other, mcguffins and characters get swapped around like so many DNA sequences between interacting bacteria, and unexpected turns ensue.  Also, like all of Tarantino's movies, this book is not one for the easily offended.  (Don't give out copies to family unless you're pretty sure it'll be cool.)  Unlike Tarantino's movies it's not all slam-bang blood-soaked crime noir, but more of semi-everyday lives gone wrong, or at least very weird.

Reading through the above, it doesn't say what sort of things this book is about.  How about a guy begging for spare change outside a liquor store on a rainy night; what's his real backstory?  And then, how do a few simple acts of kindness from a passing liquor store customer change things?  (Don't worry, this isn't Dickens.)  How to give away Starbucks gift cards, creatively, and yet in a high school-appropriate manner?  Why does a seemingly normal wife-and-mom suddenly go vegan, and what are the downstream consequences?  Because there's always a downstream and there are always consequences.  And on it goes.

Anyway, it's not so much an engrossing read as an unputdownable bag of potato chips, and yes that's the reason for the book's title.  If there are any take-aways, they'd be somewhere between "There but for the grace of God go I" and "OK, I can totally see that weird shit happening to – or possibly because of – my friends and me."  And remember, there are always downstream consequences, both good and bad, that may not be immediately evident.  Just ask RFK jr.  It could happen to you.