The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland - 2007

London: Bloomsbury, 2007. SIGNED LIMITED EDITION. This Signed Limited Edition boxed set includes the first edition of THE GUM THIEF signed by Douglas Coupland on a specially bound-in pink page, and is cased together with a first edition of GLOVE POND by Roger Thorpe, the protagonist of THE GUM THIEF. Books are tight and square with good corners and clean unmarked boards. Textblocks clean with no writing, bookplates or marks and not BCE, ex-library or remaindered. Dust jackets are Fine. Slipcase is very lightly rubbed and Near Fine. Export price in dollars is printed on the case.

The first and only story of love and looming apocalypse set in the aisles of an office supply superstore.

The book's central character is a thwarted writer. Puffy-looking, 40-something Roger is a lost soul, sleep-walking through a job he despises at Staples — he is the person seen in coffee shops, sitting alone, sipping a cold coffee, and intently filling a legal pad with scribblings. Is this guy psychotic? Self-indulgent? Brilliant? Because the act of writing takes center stage the book is told obliquely, through an assemblage of writings and letters, from which the story is reconstructed like the pieces of an Ikea wardrobe.