Tristan Quinn

The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness

Elanor Rigby

By

Fourth Estate 250pp £15.99 order from our bookshop

THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS AND a cultural gulf separate Douglas Coupland’s new novel and the Beatles’ song of the same title. Back in 1966, Paul McCartney needed to find just the right name to bring to life his portrait of a lonely woman who wears the face she keeps in a jar by the door. ‘It had to sound like someone’s name, but different enough and [not] just Valerie Higgins, you know,’ he told an interviewer. ‘It had to be a little more evocative.’ How things change. Today, Coupland has branded his book about a lonely woman by dusting off his old Revolver long-player, taking a short cut to his big theme with a boost from a more powerful artefact. From its front cover onwards, this slim novel advertises its concerns.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • The mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity has long been agonised over. But what do we know about his victims?… ,
    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    • 'The heroic male nude could not, I think, be used today to signify civic pride and glory', as Michelangelo’s 'David… ,
    • 'Munch’s later works show us a man liberated from the torments that gave rise to some of the best-known early works… ,
    Follow Us