Spike Magazine

Spike | 15 YEARS OF BOOKS, MUSIC, ART, IDEAS | www.spikemagazine.com
Interview [published December 1996]
Douglas Coupland: From Fear To Eternity
Chris Mitchell emails Douglas Coupland about fame, the future and the
problem with American chocolate
Douglas Coupland is not your average novelist. Since
the publication of Generation X in 1991, he has become
one of this decade’s most important writers, thanks to
his unerring ability to capture the zeitgeist of young
middle class America in the post-industrial 1990s.
Where Generation X and Shampoo Planet dealt with
the existential confusion of America’s over-educated
children, Microserfs documented the movement of
technology into mainstream culture. Each book seemed
impossibly of the moment at their time of publication –
many said Microserfs must have been speed-written in
order to cash in on the advent of multimedia, yet in fact
it was the result of three years’ painstaking research.
While Coupland is usually portrayed as a ‘spokesman
for a generation’ and a technological evangelist (one
of the short stories on Coupland’s website is entitled
‘The Past Sucks’), most accounts of his work fail to
recognise its inherent humour and humanity.
Now nearly 35 and finally settled in his home town of
Vancouver, Coupland’s new book, Polaroids From The
Dead, does something to redress the balance. Billed
as a collection of “photos from the kitchen drawer”,
Polaroids is a set of personal essays about moments of
life – attending a Grateful Dead concert, an obituary
for Kurt Cobain, a homage to James Rosenquist’s F1-
11. The book’s closing essay, ‘Brentwood Notebooks’,
takes a fascinating and chilling look at the nature of
fame in the wake of the OJ Simpson trial.
With Polaroids From The Dead’s UK publication in
November, Spike caught up with Doug via email. The
following is the transcript of our conversation.
Hi Spike (or is it Chris?)
I received your three postings. I know it’s strange
when you accidentally post the wrong draft. It’s the
modern equivalent of leaving your letter of resignation
under the Xerox machine lid.
If your name is Spike, you’ll be the second one I
know – which is statistically improbable. The other
Spike is Spike Jonze, lately of MTV video fame, but
before that of Dirt fame – a short-lived US magazine
for 18-25s. He and the staff came up to Vancouver for
a day and a half to visit me as part of their ‘Discover
America – a month on the road’ issue. It was great fun,
BUY Douglas Coupland books online from and
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