Overqualified by Joey Comeau

Resume and cover letter writing has got to be one of life’s more demoralizing tasks. In a cover letter you attempt to convince the potential employer that you are the person for their organization. You mold yourself and your experiences to meet their expectations. In Overqualified by Joey Comeau (author), Joey Comeau (character) writes cover letters for jobs for which he is wildly unqualified. He rationalizes his experience to match their jobs.

There are threads of sadness throughout this often funny novel as he processes through his younger brother’s sudden and tragic death, sometimes imagining him to be still alive. His letters seem to be an attempt to find meaning in a world he appears to find frustrating and alienating.

Often the letters are entirely inappropriate with violent and sexual imagery. He recalls his childhood, imagines the future and is sometimes jealous and bitter. I was particularly amused by his letter to the Easy Rider Tours company proposing a “Nova Scotia Tour of Joey’s Ex-Lovers”:

Joey Comeau is also the author of a webcomic “A Softer World” The comics are insightful, hilarious, bizarre and inexplicable. His work has elements of transgressive fiction which features characters who break free of typical society in seemingly destructive ways (drugs, sex, violence). Because of this, the characters may be perceived as anti-social or mentally ill. If you enjoyed Generation X by Douglas Coupland, Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, and Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, this somewhat dark, troubled, funny novel might be for you.