Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland

Inspired by the thwarted Latina's first rrampage, I felt obligated to finally read the GenX book. After all, it is the book that coined the term and summed up all the angst and suffering of me and mine.

I'm glad I didn't read it at the height of my GenX underemployment, since all that truth and desperation would have been even more poignant than it is now. We've had so many years to complain that the boomers stole it all from us, that reading about being locked out of the economy now is virtually nostalgia. God bless new media for keeping us all from boredom and giving us a deluded sense of purpose. Oh, but I digress - this isn't the rrampage.

Got quite a few snickers off the bat for things I identified with i.e. friends with old red SAAB convertibles, people roaming off to make black and white super 8 films when they needed to feel artsy and creative. The writing is rapidfire and witty, and my only complaint is that all three main characters speak with the same voice. This seems unlikely in real life, but isn't too upsetting in a novel, since the voice is, as I just said, rapidfire and witty.

Extra points for recreating the anxiety of a generation permanently stressed by the threat of a nuclear holocaust - that also had me nodding vigorously. Oh, we'll all be alright, but it is nice to know that each of us is not truly alone in our urban alienation. [JL]

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