SOURCE: "Doing Laundry at the End of History," in Esquire, Vol. 121, No. 3, March, 1994, pp. 170-71.

In the following essay, Blythe discusses Generation X, Shampoo Planet, and Life after God, stating that the latter is Coupland's "most accomplished fiction to date."

Francis Fukuyama, that wacky, fun-loving utopianist, asserted in 1989 that the end of history was at hand. Its disappearance apparently meant that one day we would all live in liberal democracies and consume to our heart's content. That would be cool, right? For a coal miner in Katowice, Poland, history's departure might indeed be cause to break out the vodka. But for the world-weary North American youth of Douglas Coupland's fiction, who've been stuck at the end of history for quite some time already, living there is about as exhilarating as bunking down at your parents' house after you've finished school. It's not a bad place for hanging out...