Profile of Douglas Coupland on Famous Like Me

Douglas Coupland (born December 30, 1961) is a Canadian fiction writer and cultural commentator. He is perhaps best known for the 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, which coined the term "Generation X." Most of Coupland's work explores the harsher realities of life for this generation, including intense media saturation, a lack of religious values and economic instability.

Biography

Coupland was born to Dr. Douglas Charles Thomas and C. Janet Coupland on a Canadian NATO Air Force base in Baden Söllingen, Germany. Douglas was the third child in his family; the rest of his siblings were all male. His family moved back to Canada four years later, where he was raised and still lives.

Trained as a sculptor, he worked in Europe and Japan before returning to his hometown, where he began to write on youth and popular culture for local magazines. This led him to the subject of his breakthrough novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (1991), which was critically praised for capturing the zeitgeist of his peer group, for whom its title provided a convenient label. Although society later guestimated "generation x", the generation, as being born up to and including the early 1970s, Douglas' range was close enough to approximate the label. Without knowing it, he had literally provided one of the names for his whole generation.

His next novel, Shampoo Planet, had a more conventional structure than its predecessor but many similarities, including a detailed eye for the mores and minutiae of the lives of its young protagonists, including video games, hippie parents and an obsession with grooming products. Microserfs (1995) is centred on high-tech life in Seattle, Washington, and Palo Alto, California, contrasting the corporate culture of Microsoft with pre-dot-com bubble start-up companies.

Girlfriend in a Coma (with a title from, and many knowing nods within the text to, The Smiths) showed a willingness to tackle broader themes and featured some of his most mature writing — poet and critic Tom Paulin described his use of language as "fresh, like wet paint". Like the earlier novels, however, it was criticised as poorly structured. While his books are rich in humour, observation and carefully drawn vignettes, Coupland's critics noted a tendency for the plot development to be lost amongst these. The apocalyptic ending of Girlfriend..., which seems forced and out of step with the remainder, is often held up as a case in point. In this context, Miss Wyoming is possibly his most rounded and satisfying novel.

Sofia Coppola's company acquired the film rights to Generation X in 2001, although the one-year option on the property has long expired, leaving this and many other Coupland film projects in limbo. As of 2005, many of the film projects are still awaiting crystalization. Coupland mentioned in a 2005 interview with The Advocate that the adaptation of his All Families Are Psychotic by Dreamworks Pictures appears to have the most chance of becoming a film. In the same interview he also came out as gay to the general public.

Bibliography

Fiction

• Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (1991)
• Shampoo Planet (1992)
• Life After God (1994)
• Microserfs (1995)
• Girlfriend in a Coma (1998)
• Miss Wyoming (1999)
• All Families Are Psychotic: A Novel (2001)
• God Hates Japan (2001)
• Hey Nostradamus! (2003)
• Eleanor Rigby (2004)
• jPod (2006)

Non-fiction

• Polaroids From The Dead (1996) — collected essays
• Lara's Book: Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider phenomenon (1998)
• City of Glass (2000)
• Souvenir of Canada (2002)
• School Spirit (2002)
• Souvenir of Canada 2 (2004)
• Terry - The Life of Canadian Terry Fox (2005)

Polaroids from the Dead includes some fiction as well, as a series of 10 quick descripatory shots of Grateful Dead concerts at the beginning were invented.

Misc

• September 10 (2004) — play written and performed by Coupland
• Everything's Gone Green (2005) — screenplay

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