Bit Rot
CBC Books | Posted: March 9, 2017 6:56 PM | Last Updated: July 19, 2018
Douglas Coupland
The latest book by acclaimed novelist and artist Douglas Coupland — named after a phenomenon in digital archiving describing the way digital files spontaneously decompose — combines fictional short stories with essays, addressing subjects such as the death of the middle class and the rise of the Internet and its impact on our lives. (From Random House Canada)
From the book
I am Private Donald R. Garland from Bakersfield, California, as nice a place to grow up in as you can imagine — good folk, and California was booming. My mother used to put sour cherry pies out on the lower edge of the Dutch door, just the way they cool down pies in cartoons, and it was pleasant that way. Please call me Don. On August 5, 1968, I was on an unarmed film reconnaissance mission of rivers in the Bong Son region, and I was killed when my Huey Cobra's pilot got shot by a sniper from I don't know where. The rear blade snagged the remains of a napalmed tree, and the tail boom severed. It took maybe seven seconds in all. The last thing I saw was an orange explosion approaching my face like lava flying down a Hawaiian slope.
From Bit Rot by Douglas Coupland ©2016. Published by Random House Canada.