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"Now - here is my secret" : ritual and epiphany in Douglas Coupland's fiction.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>08/2002
<mark>Journal</mark>Literature and Theology
Issue number3
Volume16
Number of pages13
Pages (from-to)326-338
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Although Douglas Coupland, the Canadian novelist, is celebrated as a modish interpreter of contemporary culture, his fiction has demonstrated an increasing interest in religious belief. These narratives, from Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (1991) to his most recent, Miss Wyoming (1999), feature covert images of conversion, baptism, and parable. The article will trace Coupland's critique of materialism and its relationship with aspects of both the Puritan and Transcendentalist traditions of North America. Particular focus will be given to the writer's use of epiphany as a structuring motif in two of his five novels, Generation X and Girlfriend in a Coma (1998), and one volume of short stories, Life After God (1994).