Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (1991) established Douglas Coupland as the leading bard of the young and the listless. It was a best seller, read by any twentysomething who is, or hopes to be, culturally in-the-loop. Coupland’s new collection of short stories and sketches, Life After God, examines the spiritual life of the X-ers, or rather, their lack of spiritual life.
Twentysomethings bristle at the very notion of generational identity. They protest (too much) when they are stereotyped as “cynical,” “jaded,” or “slack.” As strident individualists, one and all, they reply that the “Generation X” phenomenon is a sham. It’s merely a fortysomething marketing strategy, a useless label that fails to describe the diversity and richness of opinion among young people.
But is there a common denominator linking the experience of those impossible-to-pigeonhole twentysomethings? Coupland’s answer can be found inside the dust jacket of Life After God. He addresses his peers in neon-yellow letters: “you are the first generation raised WITHOUT RELIGION.” This pronouncement appears again as a headnote to a story about a young man walking through a desert. Perhaps Coupland repeats this phrase to alert some of his readers to the image of the spiritual desert, a metaphor that was overbearing enough before being underlined by the author.
How did the X-ers end up on this lonely march through the spiritual desert of young adulthood?
How did the X-ers end up on