Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland, Random House, 256 pages, $32.95

Dear Doug:

Are you there? It's me, Ryan.

We need to talk.

Our literary relationship has spanned more than a dozen years. I can still remember our first time together: Generation X, 1991. While our union has always been one-sided (you write the books, I read them), every couple has its faults. I've stuck with you through good times (Microserfs) and some rough patches (Shampoo Planet, All Families Are Psychotic).

But it's time to admit that I haven't been happy -- not for a while now. I can't pretend that everything is all right between us anymore. Things have changed. Only now, in retrospect, am I able to see the signs of a reader-writer partnership in decline. How could I have been so blind all these years?

I guess I learned to overlook your faults. I came to view your hyper-real dialogue as a cute tic, not a major liability. Your obsession with surface, your two-dimensional characters, seemed appropriate during depthless times. After all, I graduated from high school the year Generation X was published. You were older and seemed so sophisticated. But your bad habits, once so endearing, are now irksome.

Since Girlfriend In A Coma, I feel you've taken me for granted. Your plots have became more unbelievable and your ability with language falters more often. Do I expect too much from you?

I guess any relationship seems perfect at the start. (Perhaps I'm secretly jealous of all those bestsellers. And if that weren't enough, a successful art career too.)

But regardless of your dysfunctional words, breaking up with you was difficult. I kept reading, hoping the old Doug would return. Hey Nostradamus! was much better than All Families Are Psychotic. So I waited.

It didn't take long (your one-book-per-year virility is most impressive). But your new missive, Eleanor Rigby, is sending me mixed messages.

There are indeed some moments when the old Doug I know and love appears: "This sounds macabre, but how many of us quietly do this -- treat our lives like time-coded dairy products on the fridge's middle shelf, silently fermenting beside a doomed bag of lettuce?"

But your character development remains stilted or telegraphed and your language can get pulpy and purple: "I didn't know if I wanted to kill this man or lick his neck and stick my tongue in his ear."

As for narrative, your plot twists are still haphazard. I like lonely Liz Dunn, your protagonist, and her sitcom-real family. But then you introduce a long-lost son, visions, flashbacks to a high school trip to Rome, MS, hidden wealth -- by the time you decide, on a whim, to shut down an entire airport, I realize you've created a strange kind of genre fiction of which you are the only practitioner.

You know how to start a novel: "I had always thought that a person born blind and given sight later on in life through the miracles of modern medicine would feel reborn." But a good conclusion continues to elude. The attempt at a happy ending in Eleanor Rigby did not have its desired effect.

There is wit ("The night air was damp and smelled like an uncleaned fridge") and your inimitable brand of philosophy ("The best thing about being young is being too stupid to know how stupid you really are") scattered throughout, but I still feel as if you're simply going through the motions.

I keep hoping that you're going to reach for something larger. Yes, you continue to wrestle with God, and from what I understand, he or she is a pretty damn big deal. But I feel as though you're content to dumb things down, instead of up.

I want more out of this relationship, Doug, and you keep giving me the same thing. Maybe that's all I deserve, but it no longer leaves me satisfied.

But don't blame yourself, however, Doug. It's not you, it's me. I'm the one who's changed. I've had a chance to experiment with Nick Hornby and George Saunders and Michael Turner. Don't be shocked, Doug. I realize how unfair my promiscuity might sound, but these other literary relationships have made me realize that maybe we're no longer compatible.

Please, try not to take this too hard. I can only imagine how you feel right now. I realize you're upset. But I still want us to be friends, Doug, if that's possible. You were once the voice of a generation -- back when irony and Kurt Cobain were still alive -- but your throat is sounding a bit hoarse.

Rest assured, you're still the hippest 40-something I know. Sure, you've lost some hair and found a little weight, but your metaphors are still cute: "My pillow was the size of a Chiclet, the mattress as thick as a saltine cracker." Your pop culture references can be a bit dated (please, let go of your obsession with the Gap) but there are fewer of them. And that's a good thing. You're starting to mature.

Try not to think of this as a goodbye -- more of a good luck. It might sound harsh, to hear these things from someone who has known you this long. But I only want the best from you, and I feel as if you're capable of so much more. But I just can't wait any longer. I hope you understand.

Yours,

Ryan.