SOURCE: “The X-Man,” in USA Today, March 7, 1994, pp. D1-D2.

In the following essay, Snider outlines the development of Coupland's career and the evolution of his thematic interests.

A makeshift sign on the ticket window reads: “9:50 show—Reality Bites—sold out.”

“See, they don't need to make my book into a movie. Everybody else already has,” deadpans Douglas Coupland, whose 1991 campus cult-hit novel Generation X made him a sought-after, yet reluctant, spokesman for the post-baby boom generation.

Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (its full title), the first novel from the Canadian writer, now 32, succeeded where many others fell short: It got inside the heads of twenty- and thirtysomethings coming of age in this “accelerated culture,” as Coupland called it.

Media and entertainment types still try to quiz Coupland—a frequent contributor to The New Republic, The New York Times and Wired magazine—on what makes the...