 First edition | |
| Author | Douglas Coupland |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | HarperCollins Canada |
Publication date | 1996 |
| Publication place | Canada |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 198 |
| Preceded by | Microserfs |
| Followed by | Girlfriend in a Coma |
Polaroids from the Dead is a collection of short stories and essays by Douglas Coupland. The theme is that each story is written from a collection of old Polaroid photographs that Coupland found in a drawer. It is an attempt to describe the 1990s, a decade that "seemed to be living in a 1980s hangover". Topics of the stories include a Grateful Dead concert (source of "The Dead" in title), a post-mortem letter to Kurt Cobain, Vancouver's Lions Gate Bridge, and an homage to James Rosenquist's painting F-111. The book's ends with a longer essay on Brentwood, California, home to Marilyn Monroe's grave, and the O. J. Simpson murder case. The essay is in part a collage of menus, scraps of conversation, and postings from bulletin boards.