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Girlfriend in a Coma is a novel by Canadian writer and artist Douglas Coupland. It was first published by HarperCollins Canada in 1998. The novel tells the story of a group of friends growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in the late 1970s. On the night of a teenage house wrecking party, one of the protagonists, Karen, falls into a coma. More alarmingly, she seemed to expect it, having given her boyfriend, Richard, a letter detailing the vivid dreams of the future she had experienced and how she wanted to sleep for a thousand years to avoid that dystopia. The book was named after the 1987 single "Girlfriend in a Coma" by The Smiths. Additionally, Coupland uses other Smiths lyrics, song and album titles within the book such as "Bigmouth Strikes Again", "Hand in Glove", and "The Queen Is Dead".

The first part of the book covers the 17 years in the lives of a group of friends, after one of the friends, Karen, lapses into a coma. Richard has to cope with losing Karen but gaining a daughter, Megan, as fatherhood is thrust upon him: the outcome of their mutual loss of virginity just hours before Karen fell into her coma. Wendy throws herself into work and Linus loses himself, looking for that which is lost. Pamela becomes a supermodel and Hamilton a demolition expert, but none of the friends' lives turn out how they imagined. Broken and lacking, they return to the suburbs of their youth to try to pull themselves together until one day, almost two decades after she fell asleep, Karen regains consciousness. The book is divided into three parts. The first chapter of the book is narrated by Jared, the ghost of a friend of the characters who died of leukemia at a young age. The rest of Part 1 is narrated by Richard, in the first person, as he tells the story of what happened in the 17 years. The second part of the book, with no narrator, deals with Karen's return to the world. It also begins to explain where she had been all those years and the reality she had hoped to escape. Then, suddenly, the world ends. This section is narrated in the third person, with insight into all the characters' minds. The final part of the book details life after everyone except these seven people have fallen asleep and not reawakened. This section is again narrated by Jared. The characters have to deal with the end of the world as predicted by Karen in her coma.

In late 1995, Coupland was touring for Microserfs throughout Europe. Coupland returned from his tour burnt out and very fatigued mentally. The period after this tour was, for Coupland, "one of the darkest periods of [his] life". During this dark period, Coupland began to write a new novel. This novel became Girlfriend in a Coma; however, he wasn't sure where the novel was going to take him when he began to write it. The novel "pretty well erupted out of [him]". It is written by Liz Brixius and starring Christina Ricci and Miranda Cosgrove. On March 19, 2013, it was announced that Ricci would not be a part of the cast and the show was cancelled. A TV movie directed by David Frankel was in pre production as of August 2013.