Generation A

by

English language

Published Feb. 20, 2009

ISBN:
978-0-307-35772-4
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4 stars (1 review)

Generation A is the thirteenth novel from Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland. It takes place in a near future, in a world in which bees have become extinct. The novel is told with a shifting-frame narrative perspective, shifting between the novel's five main protagonists. The novel mirrors the style of Coupland's first novel, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, which is also a framed narrative. On September 30, 2009, Generation A was announced as a finalist for The Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize by The Writer's Trust of Canada.

2 editions

reviewed Generation A by Douglas Coupland

Review of 'Generation A' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

"Coupland's real misstep is in having Generation A narrated in first person by five separate individuals. It can take a master stylist to pull off five distinct personalities, and Coupland is not up to it. His five characters are too similar; each talks with the same cadences and rhythms, the same cultural cross-references. There is something to the idea that a rapidly shrinking world will lead to a homogeneity of speech patterns, but even accepting that premise, the difference between each character is razor-thin. One character, Diana, suffers from Tourette's, and even with her frequent bursts of obscenities, it's hard to tell her apart from the others. And as her affliction doesn't go anywhere, it's hard to say why Coupland felt compelled to include it."

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