Vancouver writer who coined the phrase that identified the demographic group now in the mid-40s that has yet, in Dante’s phrase, to throw away their crutches and stop being so passive. The first twenty pages of Coupland’s book Generation X is among the most accurate and efficient pages of cultural history ever written, and Coupland has the best eye for cultural details of his or any other generation of Canadian writers, despite massive overproduction and accusations of autism.