SOURCE: "Generation Xtinguished," in The Observer, August 7, 1994, p. 22.

In the following review, Saynor compliments Coupland's insightful presentation of the American youth culture in Generation X and Shampoo Planet, but contends that "in going back to more standard forms of expression, and in trying to get in touch with real things like Nature and God, it's maybe not surprising that Coupland can't find anything much to say" in Life after God.

Both wonder at life, and anxiety about life, tend to increase as you head into your thirties. The knack is to stop one choking off the other: instead, to have the two pleasantly reverberating. A lot of the writing of Canada's Douglas Coupland is about the quest for this tricky dialectical balance.

Having a family and a job, but not a 'career', may be one way to maximise things. The stories in Life After God, Coupland's new set...