The author of Generation X on his short-lived career as a restaurant reviewer, his strangest ever meal and why he loves the writing on TripAdvisor
Brasserie Max at the Covent Garden Hotel gives out onto bustling Monmouth Street and when I arrive early for a Saturday lunch with Douglas Coupland he is already there at a window table, eyes quick to the shuffle outside, ever alert to the zeitgeist. Coupland is one of the great observers of our jump-cut world; his antennae for new ironies twitch constantly. Its 20-odd years since he made his name, at 30, with Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, the era-nailing novel that seemed to be written entirely in aphorism. Since that defining moment, he has never stopped trying to keep up with that attention-deficit consumer culture he projected, even as it has gone further into digital fast-forward.
Our lunch is a jolly tour of current preoccupations. Before we order Coupland has already navigated between these sentences: I have not thought of Albania in a year. What are they up to?, Im currently trying to organise an Infinite Jest-athon in Vancouver, and You know that men over 35 make their biggest online purchases between 11 and midnight? Its like: Hey, Ill buy a boat.
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