Review from a Transgressive Fiction Fan
Credited with terming low-paying/low-status/unsatisfying/dead-end employment as a “McJob” and introducing/popularizing the phrase “Generation X” to the American lexicon, Coupland conveys the lives of three friends as they attempt to escape their collective quarter-life crisis. Using a raw ironic tone that is anything less than subtle, Generation X entwines the exhausted lives of twentysomethings with relevant pop culture references. Choice moments in the novel include Coupland’s incorporation of cartoons, slogans and Couplandisms, all of which are specific to the sentiments portrayed by both the characters and the author himself. “Tele-parabolizing” is a personal favorite of Coupland’s invented terms which is defined as describing everyday morals by using widely known plots found on television (think, “that’s just like the episode where Jan lost her glasses!”). Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture may not cure your frustration with our culture’s habit of excessive consumption and extreme commercialism, but it will at least provide you with the solace of knowing you’re not alone.
“Insightful” Review from a Mainstream Reader
Andy, Dag and Claire have been handed a society priced beyond their means. Twentysomethings, brought up with divorce, Watergate and Three Mile Island, and scarred by the 80s fall-out of yuppies, recession, crack and Ronald Reagan, they represent the new generation – Generation X.
Fiercely suspicious of being lumped together as an advertiser’s target market, they have quit dreary careers and cut themselves adrift in the California desert. Unsure of their futures, they immerse themselves in a regime of heavy drinking and working at no-future McJobs in the service industry.
Underemployed, overeducated, intensely private and unpredictable, they have nowhere to direct their anger, no one to assuage their fears, and no culture to replace their anomie. So they tell stories; disturbingly funny tales that reveal their barricaded inner world. A world populated with dead TV shows, ‘Elvis moments’ and semi-disposable Swedish furniture…